


Exit Music for a Film

by angeburger, Lyxxie



Series: Protect me from what I want [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Gratuitous magical realism/mysticism, Grundy mention, How many song references can you find?, M/M, Road Trip!, Sad boys 2 for 1 deal, Sad boys 2: electric boogaloo, Smut, TW Suicide mention, We made it, rape mention, tw abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:17:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeburger/pseuds/angeburger, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyxxie/pseuds/Lyxxie
Summary: "I’ll do anything to bring you back. I'll start a war I'll kill I'll pillage I'll steal just tell me for the love of Christ just tell me.I need you.Even if I lose myself, I'll bring you back."ORThe boys go on that road trip finally and maybe it's a bad idea but they're gonna figure their shit out if it kills them.





	1. Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Yes hello it is us, some of the veritable champions of Jarchie, here to give you another sad boy fic. We're sorta sorry.
> 
> Actually, Usagi isn't. At all.
> 
> There's yelling and fighting and nasty shit but there will be GOOD TIMES WE PROMISE.
> 
> Love y'all. Bye!

Jughead's crouched over his map, shoulders tight, a pen in his mouth as he consults his phone, draws on the thin paper with a red sharpie. It's bleeding through to the back, and somehow to Archie, it looks obscene. He's left the mapping and course-charting to Jughead. Aside from a few landmarks he wants to see, he's put it in the other boy's hands. 

 

Maybe this will make it up to him, for all of the hideousness of the last year. 

 

Jughead was, at first, intensely reluctant to start planning their trip. Mostly because there was still that fear, that expectation that Archie would disappear again like he did the year before.

 

And that hurts. He knows that he hurt Jughead and all but destroyed their friendship, but he'd forgotten. The neglect from Jughead's father, the occasional question of abuse all resulted in the same thing. When a dog is abused and hurt over and over again, it will inevitably always expect a backhand to the face instead of a pat on the head.

 

He still doesn't really know how he convinced him to come.

 

But now, it's morning, and they're already on the road. They're not out of the state yet, but Archie has noticed that Jughead's breathing is easier, his shoulders and back are starting to loosen with each mile behind them.

 

“There. Done.” it's said through a full mouth, map crinkling as he refolds it, the sound of writing instruments being recapped. 

 

“For now, you mean.” 

 

Jughead merely raises a brow in response. “I've allowed for some degree of spontaneity. You're welcome, by the way.” 

 

And immediately reaches for his third (and final, as they only had three to begin with) thermos of coffee that morning so far. Archie laughs softly at Jughead’s expression of pure pleasure. Eyelids fluttering as he inhales the aroma, hands cupped around the lid/cup of the thermos with its warmth. 

 

“Do I need to leave you two alone?”

 

A grin curls Jughead's lips as he sips at it, cheerfully flipping him off. 

 

Archie laughs a little harder. 

 

“Get a room.”

 

“No, you uncultured swine. You should know by now that sometimes food is better than sex.” the other boy replies cheerfully. 

 

“Coffee is food?”

 

“Oh, Archie. Don't you know that coffee is at the top of my food pyramid?” His sigh is long-suffering, patient, disappointed. 

 

“Yeah and the rest is Pop Tate’s burgers and shakes.”

 

They pass the state line. Their first of the trip. Jughead's shoulders finally drop the rest of the way, a very quiet exhale. Archie looks over at him, but he's looking out the window, thermos lid of coffee in one hand, the other running over his mouth in contemplation.

 

“Do you remember,” Jughead starts, voice musing, and Archie risks another glance his way. “You used to think state lines were actual lines in the earth. Like the settlers came and saw these markings in the ground to show them where places ended.” There's a laugh running through his words, teasing like feathers. “Borders were real too, even if they were continually being redrawn. I think you just assumed there were people with chalk machines constantly going over them, like baseball diamonds.” 

 

“As if you didn't believe dumb shit when you were a kid, too.” Archie laughs back, resettling his weight in the seat.

 

“There is  _ nothing _ concrete against Bigfoot yet. We have been over this.” Jughead smiles.

 

“Yeah because those blurry photos and shaky videos are  _ totally _ proof.”

 

“Suspend your disbelief for just a moment, Andrews, please.”

 

“I swear, dude, one day you're gonna end up either like Fox Mulder or that ancient aliens guy on the History Channel.”

 

“ _ Everyone _ should aspire to have hair that glorious and free.” Jughead says between laughs. He can't stop. “Come on, Scully. I know you want to believe.”

 

“Try as hard as you like, Jug, but I'm not having an alien kid with you.”

 

“You say that now,” the other boy snorts, then looks over at Archie, who's  _ blushing _ . “but I know I'm going to have to be fighting you off in our tent with a stick soon.”

 

“Right. Because you wouldn't love that.” The snark seems weak, and his laugh is nervous, thready. Flickering like a weak flame. He glances once at Jughead, masks the action with checking the mirrors, and sees colour high on his cheekbones. 

 

Silence.

 

And after a moment, Archie's looking straight ahead, resolutely  _ not _ looking at Jughead, who's now looking out the window again. “Maybe I wouldn't.” His murmur is soft, almost inaudible, thoughtful. “Anything can happen out in the black.”

  
  
  


They drive, and the miles pass. 

 

Through sparser towns, fields, farmland. Jughead begs to stop so he can tip cows. Archie overrules him and the other boy spends the next twenty-five miles pouting. “I wasn't actually  _ going to _ ,” he mumbles, frowning from the corner of his mouth. “It just sounds like something people expect of small-town boys on a road trip.” 

 

“And when have you ever given a shit about what people think you should do?”

 

“Maybe I want my life to have some semblance of normalcy. Throw in some stereotypical Americana, Secret Life of the American Teenager.”

 

“Sixteen and Pregnant?”

 

“Maybe not that far.” 

 

Archie smiles, looks over to find a shadow over Jug's features. Something one of them said has pulled at something, and they drive another few miles to outrun the storm, the memory.

 

It's a tornado on their heels, and the air tightens just enough to be a bit uncomfortable. 

 

Finally, after what might be hours or days, Archie speaks. “So where are you having us stop for the night, Juggie?”

 

His voice is calming, and Jughead can't decide if it's relaxing (as if he's a spooked animal) or making him angry (because he needs that soothing at the first rumblings of a storm that he's never able to avoid no matter how fast or far he runs, like he has to put physical distance between himself and his reality, a losing bet).

 

Both, he finally decides after a few moments of back-and-forth, tug-of-war between his heart and head and temper, it's both.

 

“Campground in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness,” He finally answers, blowing out a breath, feeling calm starting to return. “Won't be too many humans around. Just miles of untouched nature.”

 

His voice has taken on a somewhat dreamy tone, and it makes Archie smile. “‘Hell is other people’, right?” He quotes, some sardonic quip Jug’s said in the past with disdain dripping from his lips as he eyes litter, watches humans exist too close to his space.

 

A smile threatens Jughead’s dark image. “Something like that.”

 

“Never would've figured you for someone into the outdoors.” 

 

The smile gets closer to becoming real, his eyes darkening. “I'm into anything with minimal people.”

 

There's more quiet, but it's easier to breathe through. As the amount of nature around them increases, the easier that breathing becomes. 

 

“I always thought you wanted to get out of town, maybe go be a writer in the city or something,” Archie muses, following the highway signs to head into Strawberry Mountain Wilderness. “City's full of people.”

 

“I do,” Jughead sighs, “Kinda, I guess. I go back and forth on it almost daily.” And shoots a glare at the other boy. “And yeah, I noticed that it's full of people, asshole.”

 

He seems genuinely conflicted. Archie keeps his eyes on the road. “Okay. So why are you going back and forth on it?”

 

“Well…” It's hesitant, a dog worrying a bone. “I do want to leave, one day. Escape. Go to college. Maybe make something of myself.” 

 

Archie nods. “Okay. Go on.”

 

“But...I don't want to do it alone.” Jughead's voice is small now, and sounds so tired. Archie can picture it, Jughead off in a new town, full of people, buses, noise, pollution. Less like a small fish in a big pond, not like a lone wolf but like an animal forced into solitude. Like something that lost its pack, had it taken away, and is too weary and wary to find a new one. Archie can see him hating it, see the future like a dark spot on his windshield, and a worried frown pulls at his lips.

 

“I get that.” He murmurs. He opens his mouth to say more, and sees the campground parking lot rear up in front of them. He pulls the car into a spot and hesitates at the wheel a moment, but Jughead’s out of the car in a heartbeat, standing by the car door and breathing deep. Archie heads out to join him, soft smile on his face, and eyes the low-hanging sun in the sky. Jughead turns his face to it as well.

 

“We should sign in and set up before we lose all the daylight. If you brought your old flashlight like I think you did, it's not going to illuminate shit.” Jughead's rib is good-natured, an attempt at old times, and Archie takes the hesitant olive branch, the glaring request to drop the subject for now.

 

“Hey, my flashlight is retro. I thought you liked old-timey stuff.”

 

“Yeah, if it fucking works like it's supposed to. When it's 3AM and I'm trying to sneak off to do my business, it’d be great if I could see the tree before I trip over it.”

 

“If a Jughead falls in the forest, the whole site will hear him yell ‘Mother _ fucker _ ’.”

 

Jughead flips him off and Archie laughs, swinging the door open to the check-in lodge.

 

After they sign in, Archie notices, as they're unloading the car, setting up camp. Jughead moves differently here; his usual slouchy mosey is now a lope, all liquid and ease. He looks as if he's finally,  _ finally _ able to breathe. His spine is straighter, he holds himself to his full height. When he roves his gaze across the tree line, there's light in his eyes, less shadows and distrust.

 

He looks as if he's home. At peace. Free.

 

_ Safe _ , Archie realizes, a stutter-step in his heartbeat,  _ he feels safe here. _

 

And the concept shouldn't be as shocking as it is.

 

But here, he's a wolf repatriated, waiting to rejoin his pack. Archie’s just not sure what it  _ means _ .

 

The thought  _ hurts. _

 

The tent goes up without issue, and surprisingly enough Jughead doesn’t mention the scorch mark in the corner, the time Archie swung his lit marshmallow around to get the flame out and hit it. The sleeping bags get unfurled inside, lantern between them, and they step back out to look at their plot of rented land.

 

It's almost so familiar, and Archie wants to get lost in the lax way Jughead’s moving, but the fact that he’s different at all sets off alarms in Archie’s brain.

 

The real key is when he slides off his beanie to run fingers through his hair, push it back a bit before sliding it back on without a second thought.

 

Archie runs a hand over his jaw, opens his mouth, but Jughead’s turning to him.

 

“Campfire? Or forest? I picked the plot closest to the tree line, farthest from any other campers. We can explore in the morning, though, if you'd prefer.”

 

Archie can't talk about home now, not when Jughead’s words are so easy and free. He decides to let him be a while, let him soak in whatever magic the nature is feeding him.

 

“Uh, yeah, campfire sounds good. I’m getting pretty hungry. Plus I’d prefer not to be an opening scene for Friday the 13th, killed in the woods at night.”

 

“That’s Camp Crystal Lake, dick.” Jughead grins, and Archie feels something in his stomach flip at the way his lips split open, the immediate glow on his face.

 

“Well excuse the fuck out of me.”

 

Jughead snorts. “Excused. Whatever. Get to work.” He waves a dismissive hand toward the fire pit, where they've gathered their food and cooking supplies. 

 

Archie wants to make him laugh more, wants to see Jughead's face light up, wants to see him happy. It's a startling thought in how simple it is, in how clearly expressed it is. 

 

He's afraid of that moment when this wolf boy rejoins his pack - a pack, Archie fears, without him in it. 

 

“Are we going to dance around the fire naked, like the witches in Macbeth?” Archie calls back to him, pushed into the action of setting up the logs by the cold fear his thoughts have doused him with. Jughead moves opposite him, mirroring his movements to balance the pile, perfect synchronicity.

 

“We'd need a cauldron. Eye of newt, hair of dog. You know, general magic items. Also we'd probably need to be female.” Jughead muses.

 

“Warlocks.” Archie grunts, hefting a larger log to slide into the bottom.

 

“Yeah alright, Weasley, calm down. I didn't schedule any spell-casting for our first evening away.”

 

“But you  _ did _ schedule it.”

 

Jughead laughs, the sudden sound jolting across Archie’s skin and making him smirk. “Shut up.”

 

“You sound disappointed. You have something you wanna tell me, Juggie?”

 

“Yeah, quit projecting your disappointment in not getting to see me naked and chanting on me.”

 

Now Archie’s laughing, eyes catching Jughead's and spotting the mirth. “I’ve yet to rule anything out.”

 

Jughead rolls his eyes, and Archie spots the twinges of colour return to his cheeks. Wonders if his look the same. “Go jump in the lake.”

 

“Wanna join me? Skinny dipping works, too.”

 

“Jesus christ, Andrews, you are  _ relentless _ .” But he's laughing again, body shaking with the joy of easy speech. Archie winks at him, an impulse, and notes the quick bob of his Adam’s apple.

 

Feels his own heart beating faster. 

 

They go back to work, finishing up starting up a fire, paper tucked into the bottom for kindling, and there's something satisfying when, after Jughead strikes the match and throws it in the pile, it goes up with a  _ fwump _ . 

 

Dinner comes next after double-checking their set up. It's familiar and easy to fall into - as if there'd been no Grundy, no abandonment, no  _ fight. _

 

The sun is nearly down when they've finished eating, now just sitting in companionable silence watching the fire. Jughead's curled on his side, hand supporting his head, Archie's next to him hugging his knees. 

 

There's something about the flames that pull Archie in, the crackles rattling through his thoughts, filling up his head with sound. He can't tear his eyes away, the grip on his being like a tangible thing. It's several more minutes before his mouth opens, and he speaks towards the open flames, not even sure what the fire is making him say.

 

“Juggie?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

The stars are starting to wink on, bit by bit above them. 

 

“I…” He digs deep, trying to manifest the courage to speak (was it always this hard?), trying to quell rising fear in his chest. Trying to keep it from entering his throat, and choking him.

 

“Hmm?” Jughead looks up at Archie, who's still looking at the flames. The sparks against the inky black of the forest, the pops of light setting off long shadows over Archie’s cheeks, under his eyes.

 

“I wanted to say…” He takes another breath, “About leaving, going to make something of yourself.” 

 

“Yeah?” Jughead can't look away now, his eyes stuck on the Russian icon-like halo the fire is giving Archie.

 

“You wouldn't go alone.” It almost comes out all slurred together as one word. 

 

Silence.

 

“What do you mean?” Furrowed brows, hesitant tongue curling the words.

 

“You're not the only one who wants to get out of Riverdale.” 

 

The crackle of the fire fills the space between them, a soundtrack, an orchestra in the background of their borrowed time.

 

Jughead's trying to process this, trying to figure it out. “But why?” It doesn't seem to compute with all of the data he has. Archie’s a small town guy through and through. High School quarterback, pillar of the community. 

 

But it wouldn't be the first time he was wrong about Archie, he thinks, the taint of the past summer creeping into his mouth, a lemon taste like nausea, a dry acid he swallows back as Archie speaks.

 

“Because I don't think it can give me what I need, if I choose to go with music. I mean..” He picks up a twig, throws it into the fire. “If I get into a school based on a football scholarship, I'd be expected to follow through on that. I'd have to abandon music.” Archie shakes his head. “I don't think I can do that, Juggie. I just don't.” 

 

“You don't want to give up either.” 

 

“I don't want to give up  _ anything _ .” Archie’s tone is suddenly fervent, hands clenching on his knees and jaw tight. “I want to keep everything, be  _ selfish _ , but I don't know if I-” A pause, a breath, shuttered and shaky and raw. Jughead waits, gut tight, an eerie premonition in his head to pay  _ attention _ , this is  _ important _ .

 

Stop.

 

Listen.

 

“I don't know if I deserve it.” The words are hushed, so quiet, they could almost belong to the fire, the forest, the night. They surely couldn't belong to this boy beside him. This boy who oozes calm, confidence. Who always has an easy smile, a hand out to help his friends. A sunny laugh, a bright disposition. A future.

 

_ Pay attention. This is important _ . 

 

Why wouldn't he deserve it?

 

This boy, gentle and kind. 

 

Jughead finally forces the words out of his mouth. “Why wouldn't you deserve it?” His voice is so soft and genuinely puzzled. 

 

A wolf howls in the distance.

 

“Because…” He can't look at Jughead. “I abandoned you. And I hate myself for it.” The last part comes out as a wince, a vicious low whisper. “I deserve to be made to choose.” Seething with self-depreciation, a poison so well-known to Jughead that he can almost taste it in the air.

 

It's then that Archie feels wet warmth, trickling down his forearm. Archie tears his gaze from the fire only to find that he'd been clutching his arm so hard, his nails digging so deep that he'd opened up wounds. 

 

It feels oddly fitting.

 

_ I deserve this.  _

 

It's a murmur in his own head that swells into a chant, until it's so loud that he closes his eyes, body retracting in one big wince, one big shudder. 

 

It's all he can hear.

 

_ I deserve this.  _

 

“You came back.” Jughead’s voice is small, hesitant, unstable footing on rocky ground. It's his turn to stare into the fire, find strength within. “It's not everything. It's a start. And I'm not some vengeful spirit, Archie. I'm not going to ruin your life, your choices, make you choose between two things you love just because you wronged me once.”

 

Archie shakes his head violently. “It's not just that.  _ I knew what I was doing, Jughead.  _ I made a choice, a conscious choice. I…” 

 

The blood drips down his arm, down onto the earth beneath them. As if it were a sacrifice. Jughead hears the drop, looks up to see the scene.

 

“Arch,  _ jesus _ -” He sits up quickly, hands out to flit over Archie's own where they're pressed to his skin. “Hey.” He presses palms down, darts eyes over his face, too drawn, eyes wide and manic. “I'm not…” he swallows something seething and bitter, some response borne from the torn edges of his heart. “I'm right here. I'm telling you that you're wrong. You don't deserve that, this. This isn't  _ 100 years of solitude _ .” 

 

He has to fix him first before they can fix between them. There's something in this response that's stolen any of Jughead’s fire for now, tucked it away and set off alarm bells instead. His demons are quiet, missing, and he knows it will be much easier to speak without them snarling behind him.This isn't how this was supposed to go. This isn't healthy, isn't normal Archie. 

 

_ This is important. _

 

Archie's fingers twitch. “Then why does it feel like I still need to…” 

 

Drip.

 

“.. Like it'll never be okay?” He finally finishes, flinching away from Jughead's hands. His own hands are trembling, all of the ugly acid things inside that hid themselves away after the truth was revealed, after Grundy left, after Jughead disappeared for a bit, after he was sure that he'd broken it all beyond repair starting to tumble out.

 

Desperation, cold and fast, slips through Jughead's veins like adrenaline. He blinks into the forest for help, eyes snapping back to the shaking boy in front of him like an elastic. He can't make him see when he doesn’t have answers himself.

 

“You...you left me,” he starts, and at Archie’s immediate flinch he holds out his hands, twitching, weak.

 

_ Stop. _

 

_ Listen. _

 

“You left and it was...it was awful, Archie. I didn't…” he grits his teeth and screws his eyes shut. Now is not the time for that particular fight. This is different. This is  _ important _ . He picks a different path. “I wouldn't be here if I didn't want...us. If I didn't want to try. I don't care if you don't believe anything else, you  _ have _ to believe that. But this is going to be rough, and I need you to fight with me or we're going to lose.” He keeps his hands out, watches Archie’s face. Sees the moment his eyes shift over to look at him, flighty and wild. 

 

Archie laughs but there's no mirth in it. 

 

“I've  _ been _ fighting. And I am so, _ so _ tired.”

 

Jughead spares a glance down to his arms. “Because you've been fighting  _ yourself _ .”

 

Archie’s face is almost sneering, eyes dipping down and away from Jughead.

 

“You deserve happiness. It's a simple truth. You don't always  _ get  _ it, but you  _ should _ . You’re just going to have to trust me on this.” Jughead lowers his hands to his legs, tracks the muscle movements of Archie’s fingers. “This is going to be a long road. It just is. But we're kind of in this together now. I need you to  _ believe me _ -” Jughead drags a hand across his chin, scrapes at the skin with clammy digits. Swallows the awakening of his demons, fights them back with claws and teeth. “I need you to believe that I'm going to be here when you wake up. There's going to be a tomorrow, and a day after that. The sun’s going to rise. You’re going to burn the shit out of the coffee. I'm going to be snarky. The world is going to keep spinning, Archie, and I don't want you to miss it. I deserve to see it with you.”

 

Archie’s head lowers onto his arms, and the next words are whispered to his knees. “I don't think I deserve  _ you _ .”

 

“Yeah, well, no one really deserves me.” Jughead tries for humour, tries to keep his own horrors out of the words. He thinks he hears a bubble of laughter from Archie, hopes it's more real and less bark. 

 

Silence once more, except for the snapping of the fire. A breathing silence, made for catching one’s breath. 

 

In.

Out.

 

“How can you stand it out here? It's so….” Archie looks for the words, fails to find them. 

 

“Quiet?” 

 

Archie laughs and this time it's softer, realer. “I can hear myself think.”

 

_ And that's how the demons all came tumbling out. _

 

“Heaven forbid,” Jughead snorts. Archie finally looks up at him, eyes lighter. Not looking quite so lost as he did moments before. Jughead takes a full breath for the first time in minutes.

 

In.

Out.

 

“It's not silence as much as it's taking humans out of the equation. Negating the sounds  _ we _ make in favor of turning up the sounds of everything else.”  Jughead’s looking at a sky lousy with stars. Night's fully fallen now, all traces of light gone. 

 

“What do you mean?” Archie has snapped back to himself, finding a tissue in his pocket, dabbing at his arm with it. 

 

“ _ Archie. _ ” It's an exasperated sigh, “You're into music. It's ambient noise. Close your eyes.”

 

He does, hand stilling.

 

“Now stop  _ hearing _ me. Actively.” 

 

It's hard, ignoring the sounds a human body can make. He pushes out Jughead’s breathing first, edges out his own next. He dulls out the sound of his heartbeat, throws his consciousness into the air around them.

 

It's nothing.

 

It's everything.

 

It's  _ life. _

 

There's the fire, alive, snapping and crackling like a snare drum. The wind through the trees, soft but picking up volume as a breeze travels over the adjacent mountains, a steady thrum of a base guitar. Crickets somewhere in the forest, the sounds of their life like a soft piano. If he strains his ears he can hear larger creatures rustling in the undergrowth, settling in, background beats. A wolf howls again, maybe the same from earlier, starting the song. Water flowing, overlaying itself over all else.

 

He wants to laugh, share this sudden joy inside him, but doesn’t want to break the spell. He cracks open an eye, looks over at Jughead, sees the same raptured smile on his face that he thinks might be on his own. His next breath is quiet, deep, cleansing.

 

Maybe the forest is working magic on him, too.

 

“Wow.” He whispers it in reverence, as if he's in church. 

 

“ _ Now _ you get it “ It's a similar whisper back.

 

They spend minutes or centuries listening. Eons or milliseconds, neither can tell which. Until the fire gets louder, and their very human noise comes back.

 

Strangely, it feels like a loss.

 

“When I was little, and Mom and JB were still around… She used to read us Tolkien before bed at night.” Jughead's settled himself on his back, looking up at the sky. Archie seems to have pushed back his monsters enough for now that Jughead doesn't need to keep as close of an eye on him.

 

“ _ Lord of the Rings _ ?”

 

“She started from the very beginning.  _ The Silmarillion _ forward. She was a purist, I guess.” He pauses, turning over the well-worn stone of memory. “Anyway, my favorite parts were always the ones with the Ents, and Rivendell.”

 

“With the elves!”

 

“With the elves.” 

 

“Huh. I feel like that explains a lot.”

 

“What, you thought I'd really pick men or dwarves over the elves, Andrews? Over walking, talking creatures of wood and magic?  _ Really?” _

 

“But both the Ents and the elves were both… Well, they were basically dying, right?”

 

“Passing into memory.” There's a terribly sad smile on Jughead’s lips. “Everyone dies alone.”

 

Archie looks at their hands, separated by maybe a foot or less. “Maybe they didn't have to. Arwen got that.”

 

“Both those races knew when their time was running out. They had the grace to know when to bow out.”

 

“Not without fighting like hell, first. Or did you forget that epic battle at Isengard?”

 

“How could I? The most dangerous opponent is the one with nothing left to lose.”

 

“Or the one who  _ thinks _ he has nothing left to lose.”

 

“Yes, Archie, perception is truth and truth shapes reality.” 

 

_ So fight, and keep fighting. _

 

Maybe Jughead wasn't just telling  _ him _ to keep fighting. Maybe he was telling himself, too.

 

Jughead sighs. “I'm sure we all come back as something in the end. It's beautiful, actually, to think about. Oddly calming. No matter what you were in life, when you die nature takes over. Turns you back into the earth. In many ways, trees are just people. We just get reused once our lives are done.”

 

“You think Tolkien knew that?”

 

“Maybe. I just think that there’s something very soothing in the fact that this planet will still spin on once our species is gone. It'll keep spinning until the sun goes out, then we'll all be echoes in someone else's sky. There's a brutal indifference there, but…” Jughead lifts a shoulder, “It's comforting. People may fuck each other up, but natural law? That's inescapable.” 

 

Archie lets himself lie next to Jughead after banking the fire. 

 

“Hard to believe that some of these stars are no longer there. That all we're seeing are those echoes. But maybe…maybe that's a way to be remembered, when nothing else may do that,” he murmurs, and suddenly understands that great comfort Jughead was just talking about. He looks over at Jughead’s face, finds that same sad smile.

 

“‘ _ Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night _ .’” Jughead quotes, and raises a hand up to swim through the night sky.

 

Something moves between his fingers. Archie's eyes widen, grabs his wrist to stop him moving.”Shooting star?”

 

They track its progress across the sky.

 

“No,” Jughead sighs and it's disappointed. “satellite, I think. Too slow to be anything else.”

 

“Make a wish anyway.” 

 

“ _ Really _ , Andrews? You draw the line at Bigfoot, but wishing on Sputnik is fine?”

 

“Suspend your disbelief, please.” Archie smiles, throws his words back at him. “Just do it. The worst that could happen is that nothing happens.”  There's a soft huff of laughter from Jughead, and then silence.

 

Archie closes his eyes.

 

Jughead does too.

 

_ Help me to heal him. _

 

_ “ _ O great satellite, grant me the strength to deal with this asshat next to me,” Jughead intones and Archie laughs, smacking him in the arm.

  
  
  


That night, they both sleep better than they have in months. When they wake up, Jughead is right. The sun rises, a new day born. Archie makes coffee and burns it, and Jughead laughs loud enough to shake birds from the trees.

 

“I'm a  _ soothsayer _ !” He crows, and Archie gives a long-suffering sigh.

 

“Ok wow, it is  _ way  _ too early for you to be this loud.” Jughead throws a pebble at him and he laughs. “You sure you're not a witch, Jug? Having all this energy when usually you're dead to the world this time of day…”

 

“Maybe. I'm currently wielding the magic called caffeine, even if it tastes like dirt, so…”

 

Breakfast is quick, cereal in plastic bowls that they rinse off with a bit of bottled water. Jughead’s so eager to get into the forest that he’s practically vibrating, barely waiting for Archie to finish rolling up his sleeping bag before zipping past the tree line, stepping over branches and roots like these were the steps he was born to take.

 

Archie stubs his toe in the first minute.

 

“Come on, Arch, be lighter on your feet.” Jughead calls back to him, and Archie looks up to find him farther ahead, grin splitting his face like a child. Archie starts to frown, can feel it, but then Jughead is  _ laughing _ again and it's so infectious, so rare, that Archie finds himself laughing with him.

 

He's reminded of Legolas in  _ Fellowship of the Ring _ , when they're near Rivendell. All feline grace, lunging balletic steps, and joy.

 

_ He belongs here _ . Archie thinks, unbidden, watching Jughead dance over moss and smile at the trees. There's an energy here, a beauty, so strong Archie can almost see the threads of it as Jughead runs his hands over bark. It takes several minutes for Archie to walk with any semblance of Jughead's grace -  _ how did this gangly kid become so fluid  _ -, and Jughead jumps ahead of him over a small, bubbling stream.

 

Suddenly Jughead laughs, a quick, bright sound that startles Archie into looking up, looking forward, looking at the other. He hasn't heard that noise in what feels like eons, since they were carefree children, and the sound cracks something in him, some dam or wall or door.   
  
"What? What did you find?" He calls, swallowing around a sudden tightness in his throat.   
  
"Nothing." Jughead laughs again, longer this time but still as sudden, still light, still free. He turns to Archie and the redhead can see wildness in his eyes, the sort of thing that can't be found in cities. "I found  _ nothing _ ."

 

_ He's found everything. _

 

Archie steps forward more, stands beside Jughead and looks out into the forest with him, the moss and trees and growth, looks over at Jughead and sees life. Pure and simple, brought out to the surface by the nothingness of nature. 

 

Next to him he sees an original lost boy and wonders briefly when Peter Pan left them both behind.

 

Birds call, small animals explore the tiny worlds beyond their burrows. Jughead puts a finger to his lips,  _ shhhh _ , when he and Archie come across a warren full of baby bunnies. Archie goes still when snakes cross their paths, but Jughead studies them, declares them not a threat. (“ _ See, no rattlers or diamondbacks. All they want to do is hug you to death, dude.”) _

 

They meander and explore. Archie has to stop Jughead from climbing trees, Jughead has to guide Archie away from rather large patches of foxglove and poison ivy. Only coming to a stop when they reach the lake. 

 

It's blinding, a lake of pure fire from where the sun is in the sky. It's writhing light pooled there, reflection brutal and painting them with watery ripples.

 

“Wow.” That reverential tone has come back, and suddenly, Archie feels so  _ small _ . The world is so  _ big _ , and humans? He gets it, fully gets Jughead's words from the night before - humans don't matter, in the grand scale of  _ this,  _ this planet that will be here, still spinning even when humans are gone.

 

“Welcome to the outside world, Archie Andrews.” Jughead murmurs, and Archie imagines his words like stones in the clear water.

 

The sun is beating down on them, another warm summer day in the forest. Archie feels sweat running down his flanks, gathering near his nose. They inch closer to the water. 

 

“We should swim,” Archie says, looking at Jughead, who's also rosy with a bit of exertion. 

 

“What? No.”

 

“Come on, man. It's hot, we're both sweaty as hell, and I'd kinda like it if the car didn't ripen up immediately, you know? We don't exactly have showers out here.” 

 

Jughead looks away, making a face. “I'm good.”

 

But Archie's already stripping down with a look of glee sitting impishly on his face. Jughead feels himself blushing. “I’ll keep my boxers on, don't worry. No one's going to be a lecher.” And he's wading in, jumping when the water’s deep enough. Jughead watches the ripples it forms, the waves across the surface, and briefly worries at his lip. Archie surfaces several feet away and grins. “The water is  _ excellent _ , Jug. Come on in.”

 

Jughead looks away, a deep frown pulling his face into shadow. 

 

Archie goes under again, bubbles rising as proof of life, and Jughead sheds his clothes in record time, practically sprinting into the water before the redhead pops up again. He wades out away from Archie, arms out to tread and gaze anxiously bouncing from rock to rock.

 

When Archie rises again it's with a laugh, wiping hair from his face and running eyes over the other boy. He notices with a jolt that his hair is bright, the sun picking out the brown strands to make it look less black, and he looks over at the bank to see Jughead's beanie placed carefully on his mess of clothes. He smiles at the boy and flips himself to float on his back, drifting along with the flow. “See? No perverts, just nature.” 

 

He raises a hand above him to watch the water drip onto his chest. There's silence from Jughead, and Archie looks over at him, but Jughead's facing the other way, running hands through his hair to card the locks back. A strange shiver works its way down Archie’s spine as he watches the oddly intimate action. Jughead glances over his shoulder at him, and Archie feels the heat return to his cheeks. 

 

Jughead turns, lowering his body fully into the water, and raises an eyebrow at him. “No perverts?”

 

Archie laughs a response, breathy and off-key, and turns his face back to the sky.

 

“Does that look like rain to you?” He dodges, squinting up at the grey clouds in the distance, passing over the mountains towards them.

 

“Subtle.” Jughead snorts, and Archie hears him dip below the surface, coming up somewhere to his right. Archie glances over at him again, blinking, and when Jughead looks at him this time his face is sour. “Eyes on your own skin, Andrews.” But Archie’s righting himself, eyebrows pulled together and face concerned, confused,  _ it can't be, please no _ , seeing blood flowers bleached out, strung along ribs and flank, dipping down to a hip and back like broken Christmas lights.

 

“Jug,” he starts, but Jughead’s turning away, lowering himself in the water again, hiding. “Are you...is that…” He’s not sure which words to ask, how to broach this but he swears - _ knows _ \- he saw bruises along Jughead’s ribs, dark shadows under the water, not leaves or rocks but  _ fingerprints _ , fists and pain and Archie hears a ringing in his head, low and constant, an echo of his own rage tolling like a bell.

 

“It's nothing, Andrews. Drop it.”

 

“ _ Jug _ -”

 

“ _ Drop it. _ ” It's a hiss, defensive and poisonous, maybe they found those diamondbacks after all. “Please.” The last is a plea, a moment of weakness, short for  _ please, you don't want to see this, please don't make me show you. _

 

The water is cool against the bruises, and it's a physical relief Jughead doesn't want. Instead he dives once more as far and as deep as he can go away from the redhead, away from  _ himself _ , out of his own head, out of his own  _ skin _ . Maybe he can tear it off on the rocks below, morph into new life.

 

He dodges and weaves along riotous life there beneath the glassy surface, fish and plants. 

 

In that moment, he swears sirens are real, because the weeds are stretching long fingers out to him in invitation, asking him to stay. He thinks of kelpies, water horses, who grant wishes to their victims before drowning and eating them. 

 

A wish to drown. No, maybe a wish for the  _ courage _ to drown, is a better way to put it. Would the kelpies still want him if that were his wish? Or would it please them? 

 

Or better yet, would they make him one of them? Because anything,  _ anything  _ would be better than carrying a heart. 

 

Even if he had to murder for it, kill himself first.

 

Down and down and down he goes, pressure pressing on his eardrums, and it's all  _ silent _ . Gloriously silent.

 

And for the first time in as long as he can remember, he relaxes. The water holds him, asking nothing in return, despite what all of the demons inside scream for. It won't leave him, won't judge him. It won't yell at him for nothing, throw him against walls, beat him senseless. It will remain with him. It won't leave him alone.

 

It will hold him until the end, until jealous gravity demands her due and plays with his chemistry to force him to the surface. 

 

It's simple, and it's a relief.

 

And now, now more than ever, he wishes he could let go. 

 

Because he was the one that drove Archie away, it was his demons that tempted those of his father's out to play. The demons his father  _ gave  _ him, signed over to him on his birth certificate, the only gift he's ever really received. It's been him all along, the problem, and he just wants it to  _ end.  _

 

But it doesn't. It comes back, like it always does. A constant passenger, a void in his body, a black hole in his heart.

 

_ Who could ever love a beast like you?  _  His father once snarled at him when he was a child. When Grundy happened, the question came back with a triumphant roar. Asked him again and again and again until he was screaming and smashing things up at the drive-in just to drive himself to blessed unconsciousness where the questions would  _ stop. _

 

_ They will all leave you. _

 

He feels tears starting to prick his eyes there in the water, the strangest feeling of them floating  _ up _ , joining the water holding him. 

 

_ He will never love you the way you want him to. The way you  _ need  _ him to. And why would he? _

 

Jughead balls himself up, hands around his knees, trying to shrink himself so small the voice wouldn't waste its time on him. It's almost time to rise, his lungs are starting to burn, to remind him of his wretched humanity.

 

_ You’ve known since you were small. Since you started craving kisses, embraces, things you should've never wanted. Do you think he'll give you what you need, Jughead Jones? Third of your name, worst of your line. _

 

The voice seems to have a decidedly female cant to it now. His brow furrows, trying to identify it. 

 

_ He ran from you because of it. Do you  _ really  _ think he won't run from you again?  _

 

Almost. He’s almost there, almost to finding that voice’s owner. 

 

_ He ran to her because of it.  _

 

He opens his eyes.

 

_ He embraced her because of it, little beastling.  _

 

Stop it.

 

_ Fucked her because of your dear desire to be buried beneath him, burning drowning suffocating little deaths under his touch, his artist's hands. _

 

Stop it.

 

_ Because you crossed a line there, lost boy. It's why you can never go home again.  _

 

Geraldine Grundy’s voice continues to whisper to him, until his body is begging for oxygen, until his lungs burn and something grabs his hand. 

 

His eyes refocus, and he sees Archie with a worried expression. Wants to start laughing and screaming and wishes more, and more, and  _ more _ to drown. 

 

But neither the sirens nor the kelpies in his head hear him. His body betrays him, allows Archie to take his hand, allows the other boy to take him to the surface, to try to save him. 

 

He wants to laugh again. Wants to open his mouth, let the water and the wildlife make a home of him. He’ll return to the earth, just like he said. He’ll be better,  _ he’ll be better _ , it doesn't matter what he was in life. The water whispers that he'd be  _ so beautiful _ in death, and he wants so badly to believe it.

 

He'd nourish others instead of starving himself. He'd be useful instead of useless. He'd come back as something else because the universe is a closed system and matter cannot be either created or destroyed, only converted, changed.

 

He'd give back instead of endlessly taking; time, resources, food, water,  _ love.  _ All of that could be returned.

 

They break the surface of the water and Jughead’s gasping, traitorous lungs screaming for air, for life, but he's pushing words past his lips anyway. “Just let me,” he tries to tell Archie, but doesn't know what word he wants to end on. 

 

Just let me go. Just let me be. Just let me die.

 

Just let me. 

 

Like you did before.

 

Instead it's lactic acid in his calves and tears still in his eyes that he's hoping he can pass off as the kind from near-drowning and just exhaustion, the voice having talked itself out. 

 

“ _ Fuck _ , Jug, are you ok? You almost-”

 

“Go  _ away _ , Archie.” It's bitter, whatever poison he has left that he can direct away from himself, shoot out of his mouth like darts, and he tries to wrench his arm free but the other boy won't let go.

 

“No.” Archie's voice is firm but his eyes are confused, flicking over his face, assessing damage like a car crash, trying not to dip below his neck.

 

Now Jughead  _ does _ laugh. A dark, loud thing, gasping from his mouth and sounding too harsh in this pocket of nature, of goodness. Archie thinks maybe the world is suddenly a little darker having heard it. As if a sudden corruption has wormed its way here, into the oldest of places.

 

_ If original sin were real,  _ he thinks,  _ this is what it would sound like. _

 

“Jughead,  _ please _ . Tell me what's going on.”

 

Instead of saying anything, the other boy  _ lunges _ at Archie, capturing his lips in a bruising kiss, a hand at the base of his throat. 

 

_ Let me have this, if I don't deserve anything else. _

 

It burns, that kiss, and Archie feels like if it continues he too may burst into flame. His heart is beating too fast, erratically. The feeling of wrongness - not because it's Jughead kissing him, but because of the nature of it, the flavor. It's all dark, no stars, and tastes like despair. 

 

But then it's gone. Quick and away, like a lighter snuffing out. Lighting matches just to swallow up the flame.

 

When he's able to, Archie pulls away from him.

 

It's then that he finally notices the sun is gone and rain is falling, getting harder by the second. 

 

Thunder rolls in the distance. 

 

Jughead's chest is heaving, the starless darkness of that kiss in his eyes now. Pitch black like his hair, dripping ink down his forehead, onto his skin.

 

“We have to go pack up our stuff before it gets soaked.” It can't be Jughead saying that, so monotonous, a hollow facsimile of the wild boy. Archie can't find what way is up, like he swam out past the edge of the world and ended up upside down. There's water in his lungs instead of air, stone in his veins instead of blood. 

 

Cotton in his mouth instead of words.

 

Archie finds himself nodding, agreeing, as if on autopilot, yes we should do that. Yes, that makes sense. Good idea. Finds himself swimming back to where their clothes are, running with the other boy back to camp. 

 

He isn't in control. He's watching himself the whole time. An out of body experience, still 2 minutes back, lips pressed to Jughead's.

 

They tear down the tent, throw their stuff into the car, Archie in the driver’s seat and turning the key, eyes forward and unseeing. He knows Jughead is beside him absently, tucked so far against the side door that Archie thinks maybe he's going to throw himself out of it any minute. 

 

He pulls up to the sign in cabin again, signs them out, that low buzz starting in his head again. He doesn’t feel fury from the bruises, not forefront, but he still hasn't caught his breath and he stands beside the open driver's side door, shocked to find himself dimly surprised that Jughead's still in the car, the he didn't bolt the minute Archie took eyes off him.

 

_ What happened? _ He wants to say, wants to beg, wants to scream. The rain is pelting him in the back, droplets sliding under his clothes and trying to press ice into his skin but he doesn’t feel it. He doesn't feel  _ anything _ . He's still back in the lake with Jughead, the darkness over them both, the taste of his skin, his desperation.

 

_ Not like that. _

 

Jughead's curled into himself like a dying star, hood over his hat, his hair, his face. Archie slides into his seat and closes the door, shuts out the noise to a series of dull thuds. He can hear his own breath still shaking in his lungs, thinks he can hear Jughead’s bones vibrating under his skin.

 

How does he start to talk to him? How does he try to explain that it's ok ( _what's ok_ ), to ask him to please talk to him ( _why_ ), please please _please_ _tell me how to help, tell me what to do to hang the sun back in your sky_.

 

_ I’ll do anything to bring you back. I'll start a war I'll kill I'll pillage I'll steal just tell me for the love of Christ just tell me. _

 

_ I need you. _

  
_ Even if I lose myself, I'll bring you back. _


	2. Desert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, fair ones. This is Lyxxie, wondering how many days we're gonna ruin with this Sad Boys chapter.
> 
> Anyway, on that note, here's some super angst.
> 
> Usagi says she's sorry (#notsorry) for this. I'm probably not sorry, either, but maybe a little???
> 
> Whatever, buckle up my dudes.
> 
> Bisoux. xx

They drive. 

 

They take turns driving day and night, until suddenly a day and a half has passed and all of the lush Oregonian forests they were in before are gone, replaced by Nevadan desert.

 

Aside from absolutely necessary communication, they haven't so much as breathed a word in the other's direction.

 

Archie hasn't slept more than 3 hours, tops, and he's not sure what's keeping him going. He doesn’t know how he keeps food down, and he almost wants to throw up out the window. Every time he looks over at Jughead, tucked in his seat, he looks like he's  _ dying _ , and Archie doesn’t know the first thing about saving a life. He can feel something between them like a living thing, a breathing monster that hisses and spits acid whenever Archie opens his mouth. 

 

_ Why can't we talk anymore? _

 

Jughead feels empty. The only thing he can properly account for inside his body is self-defense, every last mechanism to keep him alive and safe flicked on and ready. Stay quiet. Stay small. Maybe the danger will walk right by and ignore you. He doesn't think he's stopped shaking for 36 hours, and whenever he loses a fight and looks over at Archie, the other boy looks like a zombie. Jughead feels the worry bloom in the space he remembers his heart occupying, but then Archie opens his mouth, closes it with a flinch, and Jughead looks back out his own window.

 

_ I don't remember how to start. _

 

_ How do I remember? _

 

He looks out amongst the late afternoon dunes, the nothingness soothing. All there is is the call of a buzzard and a turkey hawk somewhere overhead, talking to each other through shouting over vast distances, the wind, the blowing sand and the occasional succulents.

 

_ How do I start? _

 

_ How does it go again? _

 

Somewhere near the California-Nevada border (not far from Joshua Tree, if the map is right), they stop.  

 

Like a song whose lyrics have been forgotten, whose melody remains. Like an earworm, the tune  _ so familiar _ , if you could just remember  _ where  _ you heard it before, maybe you could hum it. 

 

_ How do we begin? How did we stop in the first place? _

 

It feels far too similar to when Grundy first appeared. Just thinking her name gives Jughead an acid sweet lemon taste that lurks in the back of his throat, right under his tongue where it connects to his soft palate.

 

“My turn?” Jughead asks, and his voice is dry like the desert around them. The sound in the car is jolting, electric current over his skin. He stares out at the sky, flushed in pinks and oranges as the sun falls lower into bed. They’ll have to stop for the night sometime soon, too, he thinks, and debates the merits of sleeping in the car versus being so close to Archie for another 8 hours.

 

Joshua Tree isn't far, maybe another few miles out until they hit a campground or motel. The latter would be preferable, but he'll take anything. Anything to get him out of the car, into fresh air.

 

There's silence, and Jughead swings a quick glance over to find Archie's head on his hands, fists white-knuckled where they clutch the wheel.

 

As if clutching that wheel could save his life.

 

“Jug,” he starts, and Jughead can hear it in his voice, broken and sad, and he’s shaking his head already.

 

“No.”

 

“ _ Jughead _ , we have-”

 

“ _ No. _ ” And he's out of the car, feet carrying him across the sand, over the rocks, the cracks, the dirt. Rabbit fast, feeling his heart pound now, proof of life he doesn’t want. Running running running until his legs start to tire and the roughly 110F heat makes his head swim and body scream for water. 

 

He can't feel the heat when he collapses on his knees, but knows that somewhere it may be physically hurting him in its high temperature.

 

He can hear Archie’s pounding footsteps behind him ( _ because of course he is _ ), hear the same dry heat pull at the other boy’s lungs, spares a thought to if he locked the car before chasing him.

 

“Where are you going?” The question is tired, and Jughead feels almost excited to hear the thread of anger there, the opportunity to  _ fight _ instead of talk, and,  _ oh _ , how he's so much better at that. He's up off his knees and turning around to pin Archie with a stare, and the words snarl out of his throat like loaded bullets.

 

"Nowhere, Archie, I am going _nowhere_. Is that what you want to hear? I've got _nowhere_ to go, no one to run with. There is no escape when you're _fucking_ _alone_. Or is that what you want to talk about? That I'm alone? That I haven't heard from Mom and JB in a _month_. I have zero options right now, Arch. Going nowhere and going fast, I'm a freight train heading to the end of the line, and the end’s at the bottom of the _fucking_ _ocean_. I'm always there no matter how far, how fast I run. I can't escape. I have _nothing_."

 

“Alone? You're  _ alone _ ? So there was  _ no one _ in that lake with you?  _ No one _ pulled you out of drowning? You didn't kiss  _ anyone _ in the water like the cover of a fucking Nicholas Sparks novel?” The fury’s coming off him in waves, it's almost comforting. Archie can feel new life in his body, blood beating like so many vengeful raging wings in his hands and neck and feet, setting him up to kick and scream and  _ live _ , even if it's just to shout at this boy.

 

“ _ No one _ asked you to save me.” Jughead bares his teeth in a savage snarl, a beast to the core after all.

 

“What the fuck is  _ wrong  _ with you, Jughead? Why would I let you try and  _ kill yourself _ ? How could you think that would be  _ anything _ I want?” Archie’s arms are out to the world, asking too many questions with too many answers and Jughead can't hold them all in anymore.

 

“Why the fuck wouldn't you? What good am I to you, Archie Andrews? What good am I to  _ anyone _ ?” He almost screams it, all wasps, trembling with the force of all of it, of everything, eyes shut and hands over his ears.

 

_ God,  _ he should've drowned.

 

_ Just let me. _

 

There's a pause, a beat. Archie takes a step back like he's been struck. Jughead pulls a rattling breath into his lungs and feels it burn like a knife. He can almost hear a heart monitor flatline, the yawning maw inside of him stretching and growing, about to rip him open, let all of the magma and wasps and sheer  _ nothingness _ tumble out on the sand.

 

“What?” Archie's voice is small, so small, so fragile, and Jughead can hear the glass of it shatter against the inside of his chest, thorny and dangerous, starting to sever arteries and organs. “Jug-” another rattling breath, Archie's hand is in his hair now and Jughead's done it, he’s killed him too, pushed him too far and that's it.

 

This is how it ends, after all.

 

“It's not  _ you _ who doesn’t deserve  _ me _ , Archie. It's the other way around.” He's laughing sadly, shaking his head. “No, man. I don't deserve you. I will _ never _ deserve you. There is nothing about me, nothing in my life I could  _ possibly _ trade, no equivalent exchange of any kind to be able to afford a life with you, just existing  _ near  _ you. I do not get a happy ending. I die alone, like the elves. I don't even get to go to the Undying Lands. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. That's it.  _ Full fucking stop. _ ” He is yelling now, howling, a lone wolf that will never rejoin his pack. He feels the sand and grit scouring his lungs but that's fine, he deserves it.

 

_ This is the way the world ends. _

 

Archie doesn't know what happened. He doesn’t know what exit sign they took to get here, how to get back, how to reverse,  _ wait, stop, hold on _ . “Why,” but that's not the right question. He feels like there's a wind tunnel inside him, he can't hear past all the noise, all the silence, all the nothing. “How...how could you-”

 

“Do  _ not _ ask me how I could think this. Do not even  _ begin _ to wonder how the  _ fuck _ I got this way. Don’t open, dead inside. You saw the apocalypse start, Archie. You saw  _ all _ the signs.” It's turned all to acid now, the snakes hitched a ride from Strawberry Wilderness with them, making themselves known here and now.

 

_ Not with a bang, but a whimper, and a mix of fire and ice. _

 

But for this poison, there is no cure, no anti-venom. 

 

It doesn't exist.

 

“I am a human punching bag. I am  _ nothing _ . Do you know how many times I should have gone to the hospital? Me neither. I lost count after double digits. I know you could figure it out. I know you knew how he hit me, beat me. I know you could  _ see _ . You saw, and you ran away.”

 

He knows how to deal the last blow, how to make him leave forever. 

 

It’s better this way, anyway. He doesn't deserve it, or him.

 

“You saw  _ all _ the signs, Andrews.” He repeats, eyes locked on his. He will watch him listen, he will watch him as he kills himself inside his heart. Whatever was left, he has a duty to do so, to see it though until the bitter end. “You knew  _ exactly _ what my life was like, what roads my dad was taking. You saw the bruises before, you saw what was  _ true _ . And you  _ left me. _ You  _ left me anyway _ . Even  _ you _ knew I wasn't worth it.”

 

Archie’s reeling, mouth open. He's pushed all the air out of his lungs and can't remember how to take the next breath. Emptiness rings, and god, it's never been so loud, it's blinding, it's deafening. His heart is thudding out its last beats, pumping the last of his blood out of his fingertips, his toes. 

 

_ That's not what happened _ . He tries to say, but there's nothing left in him to speak. Jughead laughs again, that same, awful thing from the lake, but louder, more eerily gleeful, and Archie wonders if he pulled the right boy out of the water.

 

If he didn't grab a demon instead, a kelpie after all but in boy not horse form.

 

“No,” he says, but it's too  _ quiet _ , the choirs in his head are trying to sing it but the emptiness is too loud. 

 

“ _ Yes. _ ” Jughead seethes, and takes a step towards him, mouth a violent slash of pink and grit sharp teeth. There's too much dark in his eyes, ink spilling out from the pupils, from his tongue. “You  _ left _ me. You should never have come back. Go home, Archie Andrews. You made your choice.”

 

Archie grabs at his shirt, a suddenness in him, a jolt of that anger back.  _ If we keep fighting, we're still talking. If we keep fighting, we're not done. _

 

_ Fighting is better than nothing. _

 

_ Fighting is  _ living _. _

 

_ “No _ .” He says again, but this time it's hissed through his teeth, loud in his face and he will make him hear it. “No.  _ Fuck you _ , Jughead, I'm not leaving you.”

 

Another laugh, twisted, pushed through lips as Jughead throws his head back.

 

_ All will look upon me and despair.  _ Isn't that what Galadriel said when she was possessed by the One Ring? By Sauron, by evil itself?

 

“What the fuck kind of absurd, movie script line is that? This isn't a horror show, man. You want a movie line? Here: I'm poison, get the fuck out.” Jughead snaps, pushing back at his chest with flat, burning palms covered in grit. “ _ Get the fuck out. _ ” 

 

“ _ Fuck _ you. How could you possibly think I'm better than you? How do you look at yourself and see  _ nothing _ when everyone - no, fuck everyone - when  _ I _ see everything? How can you think I'm not  _ killing myself every day _ since I left you? I have hated myself for  _ months _ . Jughead, I am  _ never _ going to not be sorry. I can live until I'm 100, I can outlast humanity and the stars, and I will never earn your forgiveness. But I'm not going to stop  _ trying _ . I am not leaving again.”

 

This laugh is different, manic and wild and hooting, Jughead pulling hands away from Archie’s chest to wipe a tear from his eye as the dark noise continues from his throat. Something in Archie goes cold.

 

“Good one, Arch.” Jughead's eyes are shut off, ice cold. “It's nice to have hopes and dreams, right? Aim for the stars, buddy. Never lose that pure heart of yours.” He pats at his chest, placating him like a child.

 

_ No. Not in fire, but in ice. This is the way the world ends. _

 

The cold in Archie turns to tundra. He can feel an ill wind blowing around his insides, his gut. The wind chill makes the temperature drop further. 

 

_ This is the sound of despair. Complete and utter despair. _

 

“I'm  _ not. _ ” He repeats, voice the only strong thing left in him. Jughead shrugs.

 

“Great. Then we're going to die right here in the desert together.”

 

“Fine.”

 

The grin on Jughead's face is awful, a horror movie filmed in 3D, sewn-on skin over a mask. Bad CGI.

 

This is what mutually assured destruction looks like. 

 

So they wait.

 

Archie doesn't know how long. Neither of them looks away from the other. Archie's hands are still clutched in the front of Jughead's shirt, Jughead's hang limply at his sides. It's a tableau that's as old as the dawn of time, or whenever humans started to feel things like the need to save others, or deadly self-loathing.

 

They wait.

 

Jughead's face starts to lose the mania, his eyes start to bleed out the ice and Archie's not sure if it's worse. He just looks dead now. The light may be waning, the sun tucking behind a mountain, but the lifelessness in his gaze still burns through Archie's chest.

 

They wait.

 

“That's not what happened.” Archie hears himself say. The words are pulled out of some hole that the lava burned open, some cave he cemented over.

 

_ If we're going to die, it may as well be with clean slates. _

 

Jughead just blinks, face void.

 

“What?” It's so soft, so raw, and it's almost swallowed by the winds that come around at sunset each day. 

 

Archie takes a breath, unsealing the hole that would've taken all the oxygen out of his spaceship, that would've sunken his boat. It's done with the ginger wincing knowledge of a bomb squad technician testing a suspicious package someone's found. 

 

“That's not what happened at all.”

 

_ Don't _ . Something old and wise is cautioning him from deep in his gut, something older than one-celled organisms or oil deposits. Some leftover instinct from something without a name, buried deep in the brain stem, the lizard brain. The voice of the amygdala.  _ Don't do this. _

 

_ Don't open. _

 

_ Dead inside. _

 

He takes a deep, deep breath, and rips that old wound wide open.

 

Water and oxygen flood in, threatening to drown, to starve.

 

“She…” Another deep breath. “It was the last day we were able to practice for football without getting heatstroke. I'd been in her class a few weeks, I guess…”

 

_ Don't. _

 

A tremor runs through Jughead's hand. A sign of life.

 

“I don't remember how I got in her classroom. I think maybe she’d caught me on the way home. But…” Archie's brow furrows hard. “I can't remember how I got there for the fucking life of me. Like if my brain were going to block out memories,  _ that's _ the one it picks.”

 

A twitch of fingers. Archie's voice is so soft, it almost gets eaten by the sunset winds again.

 

“I can't remember what we were talking about. There's so much that's a blank there, Juggie.” A thoughtful pause. Another twitch at the nickname. “I can't even remember what day of the week it was, or the precise time of day. Just an approximation.”

 

His breathing suddenly gets faster, unbidden.

 

_ Don't.  _

 

_ This is your final warning. _

 

But then, another voice.

 

_ You  _ left  _ me. _

 

He opens his mouth again.

 

“I just remember that she'd been laughing, and she ran her hands from my shoulder to my belt buckle. Like I can still see her talking but it's white noise. The sounds of empty radio space, you know? Dead air.”

 

_ I warned you. _

 

Jughead’s eyes leave Archie’s once, only once, just to flick to his lips and make sure he's still talking, that Jughead isn't having fever dreams, delusions of the worst horror he could possibly imagine. The gaping maw inside him tilts, upends itself sideways, and he feels his breathing pick up speed.

 

“And then she kissed me. I never asked her to. I never wanted it. I just remember the taste in my mouth afterward wouldn't go away. I mean…” Archie laughs but there's no mirth and it's colder than the tundra Jughead just got done facilitating. “I brushed my tongue until it bled after. I was spitting blood for days and it wasn't enough. I could still taste her there.” 

 

_ Why didn't you listen to me? _

 

“I told myself later that I  _ wanted _ it. And every single time she asked to meet, I did, telling myself that she wanted me, I was lucky, she'd become my muse. But something in me  _ knew _ . Knew that that was a lie. She asked me to ditch you, gave me reasons, and I did it, all the while trying to convince myself of all of these things.” 

 

_ You're sullied now. No one will want you.  _

 

Archie feels hysterical giggles starting to climb up the column of his throat. Out of sheer force of will, he manages to squash them down for now. “Then the first time happened.”

 

The words have crested the dam that had held them in place for so, so long. He couldn't stop them now, and even if he'd wanted to he wouldn't be able to. 

 

Jughead can't remember how to swallow. He feels vertigo, like maybe he's falling off a cliff instead of standing in the desert. The hands in his shirt are shaking, but he can't move up to stop them, hold them. Anything he does could break this, break Archie, and his fury is quiet, he doesn't want that.

 

_ Help me heal him. _

 

“I think it was in her car. Again...I can't remember. I just remember it took forever but was over in a second. I remember going home after, almost boiling myself alive trying to get clean, scraping off patches of skin. But I wanted it. I had to. I kept telling myself that. Over and over again. I wanted it.”

 

_ You're tainted now, boy. _

 

_ For the love of god and all that's holy, help me. Help me heal him. _

 

“I was cleaning my room a few weeks ago. Came upon my notebook with lyrics in it from the time. One page… One page was nothing but the words  _ I want this _ repeated over and over and...I have absolutely  _ no _ memory whatsoever of doing that. But it was my handwriting, Jug. No doubt about it.”

 

_ Help me save the one and only good thing I have. All the angels, all the saints. Demons and devils too, if you're there. Above or below, I'll give you anything you want if you can help me save him. _

 

Jughead feels his lower lip trembling. Archie's eyes have lowered to Jughead's cheekbones.

 

“It happened, and it kept happening. She got spooked. I convinced myself yet again I wanted it. Because even if I'd gone to Kevin's dad,  _ this doesn't happen to guys. _ They don't ask us what we were wearing or if we led them on or how much we were drinking. We're… We don't  _ exist _ . I’d always be the boy who got with the hot music teacher. Nothing else.” 

 

_ I'll give you this life of mine if it'll save his. I'll give you all of this suffering if it'll keep him alive. I’ll live through a hundred of my dad’s rages, a thousand. I'll let him break every fucking cell in my body. I’ll heal every cut, reset every bone and have him break them again. I'll make Sisyphus look like a weakling and roll that rock over myself for fucking eternity. _

 

“Until Betty and I started sniffing around.” It's not a question. Jughead's voice doesn’t make sense to him. How does he still remember how to speak? Why isn't he screaming?

 

Silence. Wind. Buzzards giving their last cries before settling down to bed. 

 

_ Make it stop. Please. _

 

“Yes.” A simple answer because he can't say that, can't repeat Jughead's sentence. 

 

_ I'll start wars I'll bleed continents dry I’ll light fires I'll slaughter thousands and bathe in their blood if it means… as long as he's okay. _

 

Jughead's lips part. He feels warmth in his eyes, the muscles and sinuses tightening, a salty sting and fullness. 

 

“Archie.” It's almost inaudible.

 

“I knew what I was doing, Jug. I was cognizant. And I deserved it, I guess. Why would it happen otherwise?”

 

“Do  _ not, _ ” Jughead's voice is shaking, everything's shaking. “ _ No. _ That's not how this works. You do not-” his breath is shattered, pieces in his lungs. “Do you think I deserve to get the shit beaten out of me?”

 

Archie's lips aren't moving, eyes still unfocused somewhere over Jughead’s cheeks. 

 

“No.” He finally says, a whisper. “But it's not-”

 

“It is the  _ same. Thing. _ ” Jughead puts his hands back on his chest, dares them up to hold Archie's face, tries to get him to look him in the eyes again. “Abuse is  _ abuse _ , Archie. There is no other thing. There is no other description. There is no blame on  _ you. _ This is not-” he can't pull another breath in, maybe he's finally dying.

 

_ Oh god, please not yet. _

 

“You do not deserve that. You did not deserve that. You will  _ never _ deserve that because  _ no one _ deserves that.” He takes a breath. “You realize this was rape, right? You get that?”

 

All of a sudden Archie's back in his body at the sound of that word. “N-no it wasn't -”

 

“It was.”  And god Jughead hates himself even more now. But someone had to say it. “It was.” There's nothing else he can say. Aside from his next words. “And I should've done the world a favor and gotten rid of her. I swear to -” Jughead’s rage causes a silver spring, toxic and beautiful and full of mercury and melting the tundra down to permafrost then back into dirt. 

 

“I am not a victim.”

 

_ I refuse to be. _

 

“No, I suppose you're not,” Jughead murmurs, “but I am. That much I can say for sure.”

 

Archie's eyes are on his again, and the open wound bleeds through them. “I'm going to be sorry for the rest of my life.”

 

“Stop saying that.” Jughead murmurs, trying to fit his teeth back into his jaw. He drops his eyes down to Archie’s shoulder. “I got it.” 

 

“Jug-”

 

“I  _ got  _ it. You’re not leaving, I got it. You tried to die in the desert with me, Archie. Fine, I got it. I know you are. That's not really...that's not really the issue anymore.”

 

Archie’s brow is furrowed. His thoughts feel slow, like he suffered whiplash and never got it checked out.

 

“You’re not...mad at me anymore?”

 

Jughead blows a breath out through his nose. Grinds his teeth against the acid that still sits in his mouth, stale and useless.

 

“No. I don't know, I'm…” He barks out one last laugh, but it sounds nothing like earlier and Archie blinks. “Well I'm pretty fucking furious at her, but I don't really feel anything else right now.”

 

Cleansing rage in a brutal landscape of creosote, sand, mica, succulents and sage. 

 

The temperature around them starts to drop.

 

“Do you feel any better talking about it?” Jughead asks him, hoping to whatever's listening that he does. 

 

Archie's expression turns confused. “I don't know,” he replies softly, turning his gaze above them to where hundreds of thousands of stars are finally starting to blink on in an indigo sky. “I want to say yes but I don't…feel anything but tired, I think. And glad you're not mad anymore.”

 

“Jesus tapdancing  _ Christ _ , Archie, how the fuck could I stay mad at you after that?” Jughead wishes he could be exasperated but he can't. 

 

All he can feel is relief, worry nipping at its heels. 

 

Archie's hands are still on his chest, not clenched to within an inch of their life anymore. Jughead doesn't want to move his from Archie, so he drops them lightly onto his shoulders.

 

They take several more breaths, wiping the soot from their nervous systems. Jughead wonders if there's a circle around them 10 feet out, a shockwave of their earthquake. He refuses to believe that the earth remains the same after this, that it wasn't changed as they were. Like two hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time, he expected a ground zero to remain.

 

“You know you're not useless, right? You’re not nothing, you're not alone, you're not...you're not a human punching bag.” Archie's words are whisper soft, trying to sit behind Jughead's eyelids, crawl behind his eyes to sit and nest in his head.

 

_ You are nothing, little beast boy. You will die alone and unloved. _

 

_ Stop saying that to him. It's not true. _

 

Jughead almost wants to smile, feels the muscles twitch in remembrance. “You know it's not your fault, right? You know you didn't deserve this. You know you're worth more than all of it.” He swallows hard, looks back up to find Archie’s smiling anyway, small and sad, looking out over the dunes.

 

_ I deserve this. _

 

_ Fuck off with that, you know it's not true. _

 

“So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?” Jughead tilts his head back, asks his questions to the stars, tries to count how many galaxies he could have existed in instead of ending up here. Realizes he might not trade it away, strangely thankful for whatever fate or kismet or quirk of quantum mechanics has brought them to now, to this very moment.

 

Archie lets out a breath, finally notices the cold prick at his skin. He wonders how long they've been out here, lost in a different world, colliding into each other's orbits with unimaginable force. “Give me the map.” He finally murmurs, tries to get the lost boy in front of him to meet his eyes. When he does, he continues. “I trust you.”

 

Jughead blinks, feels the words seep into his bone marrow. He reaches into his back pocket slowly, making sure not to tear the dream, and hands the folded map to Archie, who studies it with a crooked frown. He's pulled his hands away from Jughead to do so and now they stand close, so close, but not touching. 

 

“Joshua Tree is nearby, they should have a motel or something cheap for the night. We could use showers, I mean you smell  _ awful _ , Juggie.” Archie says, and tries to swallow the swell of anxiety that's fluttering through his veins.

 

_ Are we okay? _

 

“ _ Wow _ , ok ‘pot’, whatever you say.”

 

Archie laughs, a soft huff of air that Jughead closes his eyes to savour.

 

_ Yeah. I think so. _

 

“Let me drive. You look like you might pass out before we get there, and I seem to be over the whole ‘die in the desert’ thing.” Jughead hedges, flicking nervous eyes to Archie. But the other boy is smiling again, a realer thing, like brief technicolour in Jughead's grayscale life.

 

Archie nods, and Jughead starts to step away from the warmth, the sun, the best reminder of his humanity, but a hand reaches out to touch his arm.

 

“Hang on,” Archie murmurs, and Jughead sees a flash of caution, of flickering worry, before Archie kisses him.

 

It is  _ nothing _ like the last one.

 

It is everything different: a life raft instead of a wreckage, warmth and light and heat through Jughead’s blood were before there was only a cold desperation.

 

It's hope instead of despair, a solar eclipse instead of a lunar one.

 

It's over too quick, Archie’s lips hovering over his own for a few seconds while Jughead’s heart tries to right itself and prepare for reassembly.

 

“Listen to me, Jug. That was not a distraction, that was not self-destruction, that was not a diversion or an attempt to shut you up. I  _ meant _ that. Ok?”

 

Jughead doesn’t remember what button makes his mouth work, which one forms the words and makes him say them. So he swallows, breathes in Archie's air, and nods in jerky motions. When he pulls together enough courage to meet Archie’s eyes, he finds the beginnings of a smile, colour flushed across the bridge of his nose.

 

Jughead wants to kiss him again, wants it with everything he is, but he's not sure if he's  _ allowed _ to want it. He thinks maybe there's something in his eyes that gives him away, though, because Archie’s eyes darken like the sky above and his breath comes out on a shaky exhale, unsure.

 

It seems to reinforce that small voice saying he's not allowed to want it, and  _ who the fuck _ does he think he is? His heart drops back down into his throat, into the inky sea of his chest, and he steps back again. 

 

He was stupid to think, even for a moment, that he could possibly have something like - 

 

And then there's a new voice, all bright rage screaming in his head, saying  _ yes _ , he is allowed to  _ hope _ , to want  _ things _ and  _ love _ and  _ people _ in his life. That if he doesn't, he's not living, it's only a sick facsimile thereof, that he needs this, just like air, food, water.

 

He watches himself reach out a far gentler hand than before, watches himself put it on Archie's cheek. Feels something like tenderness and it's so strange, it's breathtaking, this person that's been in his life for so long. This fellow beast, this fellow lost boy. 

 

Watches himself pull the other boy in, breathing up against his lips before shakily kissing him. Jughead’s trembling and he feels like a fucking cliche, hates himself for it but also loves it, loves this cliche that he's finally able to apply to himself because it means he's loved and he's trying to love in return.

 

There's a beat, barely a second, and Jughead hears the wind whip around their bodies before Archie’s leaning in, applying pressure, putting an unsteady hand on the back of his neck. 

 

Something inside of Jughead sings.

 

He doesn’t think he's ever heard the song before, but the melody is beautiful and light, full of soaring crescendos and hopeful arias. 

 

He's reminded of perseid showers late at night, waterfalls of light in the sky.

 

He thinks he might be smiling, lips curled up and splitting him open, and thinks maybe Archie is, too.

 

They part for air. 

 

So this is what it's like. No wonder people get addicted to that dangerous dance of serotonin, that potent chemical cocktail of happiness, the easy joy of love.

 

_ This is what it's supposed to be like. _ Archie finds himself thinking.

 

Dopamine, and oxytocin join in, reward centers lighting up with  _ yes  _ and  _ finally. _

 

_ This is what it can be like. _

 

And then, slowly, the world returns around them. Archie feels solidness under his feet, can feel the cold come back with a vengeance. Their borrowed time striking midnight.

 

A black-tailed jackrabbit skitters out in front of them. Takes one look at them before going off twice as fast as before.

 

A coyote howls in the distance. Snakes hiss in the sand. 

 

_ Life. _

 

The world continues to spin, just like Jughead promised it would. 

 

“You were right.” Archie murmurs, soft and awed and bright. Jughead wants to ask what about, but the callused thumb on the back of his neck sweeps up, just once, and his thoughts go up in flames.

 

Jughead watches the quiet joy float across Archie’s face like a sunrise, who glances down to see the goosebumps along the other boy’s bare arms like a douse of cold water.

 

_ When the fuck did it get so cold out here? _

 

“We...need to get back to the car.” He manages to say with some difficulty, the sentence taking him far too long to form and force past his lips.

 

Jughead nods jerkily, takes his hand and starts to run, trying to get his blood going, trying to get warmth back into his limbs. They run back to the car, which still has the last remnants of the day's heat inside of it. 

 

They tumble inside, shivering. Archie's scrambling in the back for blankets, handing one to Jughead before wrapping himself in another. 

 

“Does that fall under the list of things people wouldn't expect you to do?” Archie asks, eyes carefully inspecting the creature beside him as Jughead extends only the necessary amount of bare skin to turn the key in the ignition.

 

Jughead’s grinning, can't stop it, and his laugh breaks out into the car, bubbled up and free, sudden in its warmth and tone. Archie joins in, head against the seat behind him, and turns his gaze back to the stars.

 

A star shoots past them. It's too fast to be a satellite or space junk or the ISS.

 

_ A real meteor. _

 

“There goes your actual shooting star, Galileo.” Jughead points at it, pulling the car back onto the road and driving off towards their destination.

 

Archie cranes his neck forward, watching the heavenly body with wide eyes. “I'm not sure I have another wish.”

 

“Really? One trick pony? What if your first one didn't go through, since you wished it on a multi-million dollar cell signal booster?” Archie briefly lets his hand escape the heat of his blanket nest to swat Jughead in the shoulder.

 

And then another shoots past.

 

And then one more. 

 

“You've gotta be  _ shitting _ me.” Jughead murmurs, laughing in awe at the night sky above them, raining down bits of fire and heaven. Beautiful slits of light like cuts through black felt.

 

A wish for each one, and they still can't keep up. Soon the sky is lit up with veins of of pure light. Hundreds of meteors. 

 

“Reminds me of a vase I once saw,” Archie murmurs, still in awe. 

 

“A vase?” Jughead raises a brow but doesn’t take his eyes off the skies. 

 

“Yeah. It was big, and black - ceramic of some sort. And it had these veins of gold all over it. Like it was alive.”

 

“It's called _kintsugi,”_ Jughead finally replies after racking his brain for a moment, remembering. “Shortened from _kintsukuroi.”_ He rolls the word in his mouth, the rise and fall of the syllables ( _kin_ flat, _tsuku_ swallowed down his throat, _roi_ tumbled over the very tip of his tongue). “Literally means _to make something golden.”_

 

Archie chuckles. “Of course you'd know about that. Do you have a mini computer in that head of yours?”

 

“Looked it up once,” Jughead lifts a shoulder. “The idea is in line with the Zen Buddhist ideal of _wabi-sabi,_ embracing the imperfect and of _mushin_. Means 'of no mind’, and it's this idea of non-attachment and the acceptance of change.” Pauses. “I like the idea of it. That if a dish breaks, it's simply an event in its life - and doesn't mean that that life has to end. That it can keep going, but it'll just be doing so in a messier, more flawed form.”

 

Silence descends, but it's a comfortable one, a contemplative one.

 

“Once I looked it up, I liked to think we could do that for people, too. That they can break, but it's not the end.” he finally finishes, taking a deep breath, leaning back against the seat.

 

_ Like you did for me. _

 

“That people are more beautiful for having broken in the first place.” Archie muses. Out of the corner of his eye, Jughead smiles.

 

“Exactly.”

 

Neither of them is sure who reaches out first, but the next time they both look down, their hands are joined. 

 

Jughead wonders if they're both the gold or silver or platinum gluing, fusing each other back together.

 

_ Holding _ each other together.

 

It wouldn't be the first time.

 

They reach Joshua Tree, and Jughead finds them a cheap little motel. He tries to get Archie to stay in the car, noting the Shakespearean faerie sleeping dust on his eyelids, but the other boy follows him adamantly, leaning against the side of the booth as Jughead pays for their room and board.

 

When the man behind the glass asks how many beds they need, Jughead mumbles “Two.” with a flood of heat across his cheeks. He swears he can  _ hear _ Archie smiling into the night and bites back the urge to tell him to shove it. 

 

Once he shuffles them into the room, he prods Archie towards the shower.

 

“Have the first one so you can go to sleep. Do  _ not _ fall asleep in there and waste all the hot water or I am going to kill you.”

 

Archie waves him off, yawning. “The idea of you not showering and smelling like  _ that _ is threat enough.” Jughead lobs a pillow at the closing bathroom door.

 

They're clean, mostly dry, and under the covers in under 20 minutes. Jughead stares up at the ceiling, mind running through a complete re-cap of the day’s events, and hears Archie shuffling in the bed beside his.

 

“Are you going to promise me that you’ll still be here when I wake up again?” The sleepy mumble comes somewhere out of the lump under the comforter.

 

Jughead blinks, feels a sharp pain race through his newly rebuilt heart. “Do you not think I will be?” He tries to make it sound light, aloof, and fails as it rasps past his lips.

 

“No. I trust you.” Another shuffle. Jughead smiles. “Plus, if for some reason you're not, I’ll just come find you.”

 

Jughead imagines he can still see the meteor shower on their motel ceiling, bright arcs of light streaming out of his body.

  
“I’ll always come find you.” Archie whispers, and Jughead blinks through the tightness in his throat.

* * *

 


	3. Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, fellow trash babes. Lyxxie here. We promised you guys good times, didn't we? Well here we go.
> 
> This is technically the end of the fic, but we're writing an epilogue so there's just a tad bit more.
> 
> This is also Usagi's lovesong to Cali, and it is wonderful. 
> 
> Enjoy the beauty of our multi-chaptered slow burn finally catching fire! Bisoux.

After their first night in Joshua Tree, they spend three days in the desert. 

 

And as they hop on the freeway on the third day, heading southwest, Jughead finds that he's completely filled one out of the two notebooks he brought with him for the trip. Outlines, snatches of dialogue, whole chapters tucked into its pages. 

 

They've also filled two whole rolls of black and white film that they'll develop when they get home. Archie is suddenly Gollum, aware of how fragile the canisters are. Hisses at Jughead whenever they get threatened. All Jughead can do is laugh.

 

And it feels good. 

 

He feels  _ free _ .

 

He wonders if there's new stones left behind them in the desert, physical remnants of themselves that they wrenched loose from their bodies and dropped. They don't need them anymore. 

 

Jughead feels light where before, he remembers only dark. His eyes are still adjusting. That first full day in Joshua Tree, he felt somewhat blind, still blundering around because of it.

 

He feels  _ happy _ , and he thinks he might have smiled for 72 hours in a row. His cheeks ache but he can't care.

 

It's mildly ridiculous. Jughead would make fun of himself if he weren't so strangely carefree.

 

The closer they get to the coast, the moister the air gets. It's a palpable change, and Archie rolls down the window, wishing he could bottle the stuff. He swims his hand through the air outside the window as Jughead drives them by, fingers stretched out wide to catch resistance on the webbing.

 

Archie feels like he's been granted new life.

 

It's an odd notion, but he just feels so  _ fluttery _ and  _ energetic _ . Like when he catches himself staring too long at Jughead when the other boy sits in the passenger seat, knees tucked up to his chest and pen studiously writing away, and feels like a cage of butterflies has been opened somewhere in his large intestine. He has to pull the car back into the right lane with a quick jerk of the wheel, so distracted does he get, and Jughead's laugh beside him flushes across his cheeks like honey.

 

Or when their hands touch, and Archie has to look down to make sure he hasn't accidentally touched a live wire, so immediate is the delightful  _ zip _ through his nervous system.

 

He  _ likes _ it. Like a fawn testing out its new legs. They're wobbly and messy together but he likes it.

 

“If you hit a sign like that and lose your hand, I am  _ not _ turning around to look for it.” Jughead comments drily, eyebrow raised. He's got his window down, too, elbow poking out through the open space.

 

“Spoilsport.” 

 

“Right, cause what we've been missing from the last few days has been stunts from  _ Jackass _ .”

 

“Hmmm…” 

 

“That wasn't supposed to give you ideas, dude.”

 

Archie's grin is goofy, delirious. “Too late.”

 

“What the fuck am I gonna do with you?” Jughead’s laughing again. 

 

Archie leans in when traffic slows, kisses his cheek. “Love me like the rascal I am?” 

 

Jughead’s entire heart stops. When it kicks back up, he wonders if it's still blood that it's pumping, or stardust instead. He hums a response instead of replying, just in case opening his mouth would release any of the light he feels within.

 

All the same, Archie withdraws his hand. 

 

On the way, they argue. Jughead is dying to go to what used to be Graumann’s Chinese Theatre, maybe up to Chateau Marmont. Archie says that they can see it tomorrow, that it's not far from where the map is telling them to go to today.

 

“If we don't go at some point, I swear to God I'm going to tie you up, hijack this car and go myself,” Jughead finally declares. 

 

Archie thinks about that not idle threat, finds that he may not mind being tied up by Jughead before the thought retracts itself like a shy rabbit going back into its warren.

 

Dense downtown skyscrapers give way to large open skies as they continue west. It's a clear, hot day, and somewhere around Culver City (which, Jughead informs him, was Hollywood before it was even an industry and it was still called Hollywoodland, thank you very much), they can see the Hollywood sign. 

 

It's breathtaking and strange and yet not, like it sprang up there naturally, an organic part of the city.

 

“It used to be called Hollywoodland?” Archie raises a brow. 

 

“Up until some actress climbed up the hills in that area and threw herself off the 'land’ part of the sign in the '20s, yeah.” 

 

“That took an unexpectedly dark turn.”

 

“Yeah, well, they never do anything by halves there, even now.” It's a soft sigh from Jughead, who maneuvers them onto the 10, which will take them to the 1, PCH.

 

Archie is making a list of all of the other places he wants to see, because right now, the sea is calling. He can feel its waves in his feet, its song in his blood. It's a roar and a beckoning hand,  _ come home.  _ He can't explain this feeling, just that they need to get there, and soon.

 

_ Come home. _

 

He looks at Jughead in profile, the late afternoon sunlight gilding his features. 

 

_ What if I already am home? _

 

The other boy is humming a song that feels familiar, stretching his neck that's starting to ache from all the driving. 

 

_ What if I've been home all along? And what if I just couldn't see it because I couldn't find the light to do that with? _

 

“Do you want me to drive for a while?” He asks softly, and toys with the idea of offering to massage the kinks out of Jughead's neck. 

 

“Eager, are we?”

 

Archie blinks, turns eyes back to the scapes around them. “Too obvious?”

 

Jughead hums. “You've been on the edge of your seat for like 20 miles. If you were a dog you would've had your head out the window the whole time.”

 

Archie smiles, flicks his gaze back to Jughead to find the same soft smile on the other boy’s face. “I want to see it. I want to see where the sky meets the water, where people thought they could fall off the edge of the earth.” He says quietly, the admission feeling personal, true, real.

 

“If I let you drive, are you going to do the speed limit?” Jughead teases.

 

“Do you  _ want  _ me to do the speed limit?” Archie laughs, easily, free.

 

“I want you to do whatever  _ you _ want to do.” Jughead swallows, trying to explain in one sentence. There's a strange bubble just under his ribs, an itch he wants to scratch, and he’s positive it will go away when he knows  _ for sure _ that Archie is okay. “I want you to do whatever you're comfortable with.”

 

Archie looks at him with a cat’s grin. “ _ Whatever  _ I want to do?” His voice has dropped to something low, and soft. For all of his teasing, his eyes say  _ thank you _ and  _ I will. _

They also say  _ I'm still not sure I deserve you. _

 

Jughead sees his eyes, knows what he means, rolls his own. “Yes, Andrews. Whatever you want to do. Just don't crash the car, okay?”

 

They stop in Venice to pick up dinner for the night and gas. Archie climbs into the driver's seat, Jughead’s stretching and still rubbing the back of his neck with grunts of discomfort. 

 

Back on the freeway, Archie's hand goes to Jughead's neck and starts to massage it in broad circles.

 

And it feels  _ amazing. _ He lets out a small sigh. He must've messed up his neck more than he thought sleeping or something because - 

 

Wait.

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jughead asks, eyes on the road. ‘This’,  _ this _ , all of this, all of them, everything. 

 

Archie thinks a moment. He liked hearing that sigh. Finds that he wants to hear more,  _ much _ more. Finds himself thinking of the other boy sprawled underneath him -

 

Stops the thought right there. He might crash the car, otherwise, and he  _ just _ promised he wouldn't do that.

 

“Yes. I do,” Archie murmurs, glancing at him with a small smile. 

 

“Are you sure?” Jughead's voice is just as soft, a little scared. He has to ask again, has to be  _ sure _ . He doesn't want to fuck things up more than he has, more than they already are - 

 

Archie's hand slips from his neck to the hand closest to him, weaves their fingers together, kisses his hand. 

 

“Yes, Juggie, I'm sure. And if things go sideways…” Glances at him again and this time his smile is huge, like the sun is sitting next to him. “I'll let you know. I promise.”

 

And his hand migrates back up to Jughead's neck, rubbing the tight knots there. 

 

Soon Jughead's moving in concert with that hand, a soft groan slipping out. He blushes and Archie grins. He wants to chastise him, tease, remind him to  _ focus _ , but he's not even sure what he'd be telling him to focus  _ on _ .

 

“I don't know what I did to fuck up my neck,” The dark-haired boy says, a bit defensively.

 

“That or I have magic fingers.”

 

“What are you? A creepy motel vibrating bed advertisement?” 

 

“You seem to like these magic fingers just fine, Juggie,” Archie laughs, feeling the nuclear blush radiating from Jughead next to him. He manages to undo another knot in the muscle of the other boy's neck, who mewls and hates himself for it.

 

“Asshole.”

  
  


They go from the 10 to the 1 somewhere near Cloverfield in Santa Monica, soon taking them past the pier and Will Rogers, the huge stretch of beach that hides the coast. It's just so big, so wide, and sea goes on forever.

 

“What's that?” Archie’s face is plastered to the window like a child. 

 

“What's what?”

 

Archie points to the soft white cloud that sits off the horizon. 

 

“That.”

 

“Oh. That's Catalina Island. Rumor has it that the great state of California bought it from the Wrigley family like twenty years ago for way too much money. You know, the gum people?”

 

“Shit. Now I wanna go.” It's muttered darkly and it makes Jughead smile. 

 

“Yeah, well, apparently that isn't even the most fun of the Channel Islands. They stretch from here to Santa Cruz and apparently the rest of them are overrun with wild boar.”

 

“Anyone else live on them?” 

 

“I don't think so. I think there are outposts for humans on the rest but it's otherwise mostly angry pigs that took over decades ago.”

 

There's a beat before Archie collapses into laughter. “What the actual fuck, California?” He manages to get through his giggles. 

 

“I don't know, man. This place has issues.” Jughead's grinning and it feels good, his shoulders feel so  _ light _ and he can't stop marveling at it all. There's still a small voice, tucked away somewhere in the back of his head, that quietly murmurs that it  _ won't last _ , and he still  _ doesn’t deserve this _ .

 

But for the first time in several years, Jughead finds himself able to tell the voice to  _ shut the fuck up. _

 

Traffic gets worse around the Palisades, but loosens up again as soon as they go past it. 

 

“Do you think everyone's headed to the ocean?” Archie asks, fingers tracing the outside rim of the window.

 

Jughead hums contemplatively. “Maybe. None of them are as excited as you, though. And if you don't want to be near them, we can find a stretch of it that's more secluded.”

 

“ _ You _ don't want to be near them.” Archie corrects, smiling.

 

“I don't want to be near anyone, really.” Jughead grumbles. Archie’s switches hands on the wheel and twines their fingers back together as Jughead frowns, realizing his mistake. “Alright, whatever,  _ almost _ anyone.”

 

Archie’s grin is smugly victorious. 

 

Their hands remain intertwined as they go into Malibu, past Zuma - 

 

(“Is that where we're go- “ 

 

“For the last time, Arch,  _ no. _ ”)

 

Past the entrance to Topanga Canyon (where Archie once again reiterates his desire to explore it all - “ _ Not with that fucking flashlight of yours, we're not. _ ” - and maybe if they finally get out and into the world this is where they could end up, and Jughead finds himself agreeing loudly), past Point Dume and the Split Rock (“What the fuck, did they just split it down the middle between these two big piles of sand and then build a highway?”). Maybe fifteen minutes more and they're there, pulling off at a sign that guides them and welcomes them to Leo Carillo State Park.

 

The last of the rolling foothills at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains meeting the sea, rolling out in gentle waves to the water. They check in and pay their fee, and get as close to the water as they can for camping without pissing off the Ranger stationed there. 

 

(“I’d also prefer not to be woken up by the tide coming in through our tent.” 

 

“Calm down, Wicked Witch of the West, we’re not even near it.”)

 

Crabgrass and wild thistle and aloe plants and purple flowers neither boy can identify lead them to the sand. The air is denser here, weighted with salt, thicker. It feels like another layer of clothing to Archie as he turns around, trying to take it all in. When he breathes in, he can almost feel it form crystals in his lungs, chronicling their time here. 

 

Finally, they're there. Huge jagged rocks stick up like broken teeth in the water, and Jughead can see a murder of surfers floating like placid ducks just past the last largest rock. They crest one last dune and both of their mouths are open in wonder. The tide is going out, and it leaves a multitude of shells and stones and tiny sand crabs that burrow back into wet sand. 

 

And the horizon is huge, open, kissing the water as far as the eye can see. They meet not like solid edges but like blurred lines, and Jughead makes himself almost dizzy trying to separate them. Like watercolor lines, they're both absolute and mere suggestions and can't be pried apart by the human mind. 

 

Archie feels his heart break open, full of love for everything around him. 

 

_ Welcome home _ , the waves murmur, beckoning. 

 

Jughead takes his hand and squeezes. The opposite of a desert (all deserts were once the bottom of deep oceans, anyway) in its dampness, fullness. He can still see for miles, just like the desert, but the picture is moving now, constantly in motion. Resetting itself, drawing forward and back. Never constant, ever changing,  _ impermanent.  _

 

Fluid. Graceful. Free.

 

“Is it everything you hoped it would be, Arch? This grand end of the world?” Jughead's voice is soft, almost buried by the sound of the surf and the sandpipers scurrying around their feet trying to get at the sandcrabs.

 

“More.” Archie murmurs through salt-chapped lips that split his face from ear to ear. “The end of the world isn't the  _ end _ , you see? It just keeps going. No one’s going to fall off. It's so... _ hopeful _ .”

 

Jughead lets the water take his sight, his gaze. Tries to see this world through Archie's eyes. He can see it almost immediately, the fuzzed-out edge of every horizon. Where the ocean ends, there's just more sky.

 

Nowhere to go but up.

 

An early moon makes its appearance, starting to rise even though it's not even sunset, greedily demanding its place in the sky, its throne over the ocean.

 

Jughead feels dizzy from seeing both in the sky, like they're in another universe with two suns, two cosmic bodies at once. It adds a strange sense of mysticism to their scene, calm waters and dangerous rocks. So much juxtaposition in one space.

 

It seems fitting that they've ended up here. A sense of prophecy and wonder had filled Jughead when he chose this place, and now he knows why. 

“So the end isn't the end, huh?” He manages to say, and is momentarily stunned at how he can't keep any of the awe out of his voice.

 

“It never was. It was always the beginning. They've always fed into each other, off of each other. A push and pull.”

 

“Cycles and rhythms,” Jughead murmurs more to himself than to Archie, fingers starting to itch with the need to write again.

 

“Yeah. The original music of the universe,” and Archie too now wishes he'd brought his guitar (he'd forgotten it in his frenzy to get on the road), suddenly needing the steady thrum of the chords. 

 

Each other's muse standing next to him.

 

Is this what each of their idols realized when making their master work? That life was one big figure eight? That rises and falls could never really stack up against what the universe was always meant to do?

 

Continue on. Never stop. The rest always works itself out in the end. Keep fighting.

 

Jughead is reminded suddenly of a Latin passage he once read. “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit"  _ Perhaps this too will be a pleasure to look back on someday. _

 

The words fizzle out of his head as Archie pulls Jughead into his arms and kisses him. 

 

There's a sweetness to it, a gentleness that's new, a tenderness. Archie throws all of himself into it, his whole being. He lets his questions seep out of his feet and into the sand, lets everything outside of this moment get pulled back by the waves and dragged out to that false end of the world.

 

Pain as tribute. 

 

The sea accepts it, and takes it with it as it recedes. 

 

Jughead feels like a cliche again, but quickly tells that voice to be quiet, to shut its snout. Feels the other boy solid as an old, majestic oak, knows he'll keep holding him up, won't let him fall. Archie has a hand around his waist and one holding onto the side of his face, and Jughead can feel heat through his skin, like Archie pulled the sun from the sky and is pushing it through his fingertips. Jughead puts one of his hands, unsteady, on Archie's chest, just over his heart. He can feel the erratic beat, the quick fluttering of tiny wings. When he curls those fingers in his shirt and pulls the other boy as close as he can, he can feel the smile against his lips, hear the contented sigh in his breath like the movement of the waves.

 

_ Never stop. _

 

The wind whips up around them, carrying bits of spray and surf. Sandpipers continue to wind around their feet, though not quite as much as moments before because their patch of sand is starting to dry. 

 

They part for air, and they’re both grinning like idiots. Long, dark curls are in Jughead's face and Archie tucks them back behind an ear.

 

“We're a cliche,” he giggles and suddenly can't stop, and Archie's laughing with him. 

 

“I don't care, man. I love this. I love being here,” the redhead shouts it into the surf, who accepts it and takes his words as the tide goes out once more.

 

The three words he's not saying but Jughead can still hear them if he listens hard enough, hidden as ambient noise between the waves and the birds and the surfers and two sets of hummingbird hearts.

 

_ I love you.  _

 

They're keeping each other weighted there, so light now, otherwise they might just float off, their chucks might just decide to let go of the ground. 

 

There's an ache in Jughead’s heart that's entirely new, nothing like he's ever experienced before. Like the muscle is sore from overuse, like it's stretched larger than before to fit all of this sudden happiness in it.

 

Jughead's cheeks ache from grinning in the same way, the muscles sore from disuse. “I know,” is all he says, all he can say, “I do too.”

 

Archie plucks his four word silent answer from the ambient noise, and his grin gets larger, if that's possible. 

 

His heart is beating a new rhythm, one he wants to write down, fold up, keep in his pocket. He wonders briefly if their hearts are beating the same, the same frequency, the same tune.

 

Jughead just rolls his eyes, and pulls him in once more, grin burning against Archie's lips. Shivers as the wind kicks up again, this time colder, damper. 

 

But the setting sun on his shoulders is warm, so warm, and his heart pushes against the bottom of his ribs, trying to leap out of his skin, which fizzes, as if he’s dissolving, effervescent in nature. Archie’s hand is on the back of his neck, arm looped around his waist tight, so tight, but he just can’t care, he  _ can’t care _ . 

 

_ This is what it  _ should _ be like. _

 

And then there’s cold around Archie’s ankles and he yelps, breaking away from his lips violently to see that the tide has reached out for them, wants to pull them in. 

 

“What the fuck - “

 

“You believe me now about not wanting the tide to come into our tent?” Jughead merely raises a brow but can’t hold it for long because laughter is bubbling up his throat and he has to let it out, tossing his head back with it. Archie leans down, something catching his eye. After the water recedes, he scoops it up.

 

“A conch?” It’s bone white and beat up, porous but still solid, still sturdy, with a mother of pearl interior. It’s almost the size of Archie’s hand. It’s by no means aesthetically perfect or pleasing, but it feels fitting that it should arrive here, right at their feet. Jughead takes it, shakes out whatever remains in there (makes sure there aren’t any crabs hiding), and holds it to Archie’s ear.

 

“What does it sound like?”

 

Archie closes his eyes. The echo of the tide, unending and forever, laps at his eardrums. 

 

He smiles, eyes still closed. “Sounds like home. Crazy as that sounds.”

 

Jughead can see the other boy at home here. It makes sense. It’s wild, yet has a sense of unity to it, cohesion. Barely restrained fury, yet gentle, playful moods. Cleansing waters to a raging fire, but able to rise up and drag everything in. Whirlpools and tidal waves, lowered tides and gentle breezes.

 

If Jughead is the forest in all of its primitive pristine wildness, then Archie is the sea. Loving, deep, strange. A song in absolutes and opposites. One can’t exist without the other.

 

Two lost boys that have been found.

 

Jughead’s stomach makes itself heard, making them both grin. They walk back to camp (still within sight of the tideline), start preparing dinner. Archie looks around for driftwood that isn’t completely soaked, Jughead gets out everything they’ll need. When they light the small fire, it plumes up in flames of lavender and blue, yellow and red. It’s spectacular, and neither has seen flames like that before.

 

Sunset arrives. Archie’s battling the need to write down every last chord for the new song in his head, but Jughead shoves his notebook at him, orders him to do it. Knows he’s a dog with a bone (and Jughead can’t talk, because he’s already a third of the way through his second notebook for the trip), knows he won’t rest until he finishes it. Jughead piles more driftwood on, and its light brings a curtain of lavender and blue over his face.

 

The sun is about to dip beneath the horizon for the evening when they both finish getting their thoughts down on paper. Archie puts his notebook away, turns his eyes up to the sky. The moon is full and bright, so bright, it’s almost blinding.

 

“Wonder if we’ll see any more shooting stars?” It’s a mutter half to himself, half to Jughead.

 

“Don’t think so. Long odds, Arch.” Jughead’s never heard of a multi-night event with meteor showers. He’s looked it all up, so entranced with cosmic bodies, of other worlds outside his own.

 

Archie’s grin makes something low in Jughead’s belly flutter. “I’ll continue to hope anyway. You never know, Jug. May happen after all. Whedon was right, ‘Anything can happen out in the black.’” He repeats, and Jughead thinks about how fitting it is that they keep drawing parallels between the beginning of their journey and this, a supposed end.

 

_ Nowhere to go but up. _

 

The temperature continues to drop. Jughead lets himself settle into Archie’s side, feels the redhead curl an arm around his waist. Allows himself to lay his head on the other boy’s shoulder as they watch the sky. It deepens and night fully falls, and only a few surfers remain. Stars unfold above them, a curtain that’s more reluctant than the others they’ve seen recently. There’s more light pollution coming from the city compared to the forest and the desert, but it’s still relatively clear. 

 

No, this isn’t a supposed end. 

 

It’s a continuation. Isn’t that what they’ve learned?

 

And with that realization comes peace. 

 

More weight starts to drop from them both. Neither can describe it, or even name how it’s happening, but with each minute, it happens. 

 

_ Pay attention _ . Jughead’s heart continues to beat.  _ This is important _ .

 

He is  _ important. _

 

“If it were up to me,” Jughead finally says, looking up at Archie, “I’d make sure you’d get all the goddamn meteors you want.”

 

Archie laughs softly, a huff of air that touches Jughead’s cheek. “Unlimited wishes?”

 

“Why not? I’d be a merciful god.”

 

Archie turns to him with a grin. “A  _ god _ , now? Really? That escalated quickly.”

 

“Magnanimous, generous, ever-giving. That’d be me.” It’s said with a long-suffering sigh.

 

“Bullshit.” Archie chuckles, turning to the other boy, nosing gently against his cheek. 

 

Jughead gets chills from that light touch alone. “Okay, maybe just for you.” Turns to the other boy, draws him in. “For you only,” he breathes against his lips, and kisses him. 

 

_ He is  _ everything _. _

 

Archie’s palms are against his chest, and then they’re moving upward, pulling him in, pulling him closer. The kiss gets deeper, and Jughead takes a shuddering breath inward as the other boy pulls away.

 

“Wait. Not a god. Didn’t you mean a genie with the unlimited wishes thing?” 

 

“Oh my  _ god _ , Archie, we are  _ not _ having this conversation right now!” It’s huffed indignantly against his cheek, with real laughter threatening to burst out.

 

“You started it.” He can feel Archie trembling with laughter next to him.

 

“Really? Semantics at a time like this?  _ Really? _ ” Jughead rolls his eyes.

 

“So distract me.” It’s grinned up against Jughead’s lips.

 

Jughead’s stomach  _ drops _ at that grin, challenge fluttering through his soft tissue and landing at the base of his spine. It becomes kindling for a fire there, flames of all colors starting to burn. He finds himself kissing the other boy hard, long long fingers splayed across his cheeks. There’s not enough air and he’s dizzy, so dizzy, and by the way Archie’s still laughing, he probably isn’t quite getting enough air, either.

 

But god, he doesn’t care, he can’t care, he just wants  _ more _ . 

 

Archie knows that it’s getting colder out but he can’t feel a single degree difference. If anything, the air around them, their immediate atmosphere (two twin meteors spinning into the other’s orbit) feels  _ hot _ , the kind that could start fevers, the kind that could boil blood. Blood is rising in his cheeks, his chest, and he can feel a blush creeping down the collar of his shirt, spreading out to his arms, his belly. It feels so  _ good _ , so unfamiliar, but so oddly  _ correct _ . The next logical move in chess, the rising chord, the major lift.

 

_ This is so different than before,  _ Archie finds himself thinking, his breath hitches, feeling his heart expand, feeling Jughead’s fingers running down his cheeks, running down his chest. The kiss gets hotter, harder,  _ deeper _ , a whimper freeing itself from the depths of Jughead’s throat. 

 

And it’s the sweetest thing Archie’s ever heard.

 

_ More of that. _ He catches a thought before his mind blanks at the feeling of Jughead licking into his mouth.  _ I want more of that _ .

 

He feels  _ hungry _ , a ravenous need that pulls out of his heart and sends out feelers through his body, makes his spine tingle and fingers bold, trailing down down the other boy’s chest and back up, tucking under his shirt to splay against his skin.

 

The bubbled gasp from Jughead's lips sounds like the ocean, and Archie presses them firmer, wants to burrow under his skin and live in his heart -

 

He catches another errant thought, a picture. Jughead's bruises so out of place on his skin, dark colours and faded marks against the pale tone.

 

Archie pulls back a bit, barely a centimetre between their lips, hands hovering just above Jughead's skin now. 

 

“You’re not,” Jughead breathes, and Archie knows that their hearts really do beat the same after all. “It doesn't hurt. It's ok.”

 

Archie hesitates another moment,  _ are you sure _ ,  _ please be sure _ , but Jughead’s kissing him again, slow and thorough and  _ sure _ .

 

_ I'm sure. _

 

Feels the other boy putting his hands around Archie's under his shirt, tightening, making Archie pull him closer. This time Jughead's gasp is a laughing one, pleased with himself, with Archie. 

 

_ More. _

 

The kisses get ravenous, and Jughead feels like he's already on fire, a forest fire like the ones in late August where everything is  _ so dry _ , begging to burn. His breathing sounds like the crackles of trees being felled by the flames. 

 

Archie pulls the other boy down with him, feeling him surge and loom over him like a tsunami, a standing wave. He takes a deep breath in as he lands on his back, finds that he wouldn't mind being drowned by the boy above him. 

 

Wouldn't mind drowning like this with him. 

 

_ I want this. I really do. _

 

Jughead's fingers are bumping up his ribs, inching up his flanks. Breaks the kiss long enough to ruck up his shirt, placing a kiss where his heart is banging against his ribs, thumping so hard that Jughead can see the flesh jump before his eyes. 

 

“Is this okay?” The words are whispered, formed against Archie's skin, pale eyes boring into dark eyes.  _ Please be sure _ .

 

Archie’s pupils are blown too wide, everything in fuzzy focus like overexposure. He wants  _ more _ , so much  _ more _ , and can't figure out how to articulate that correctly. “Yes,” he says, breathy, and thinks he can hear himself repeat it a few times as he brings Jughead's lips back to his.  _ I'm not done kissing you, I might never be done kissing you _ . “ _ Yes. _ ” A hitch in breath from Jughead, fingers quivering over his rib bones, playing a flight song in quicktime. “ _ Stay. _ ” Archie begs, trailing his mouth over Jughead’s jaw, flashing teeth at the junction just below his ear. The groan it pulls from Jughead sounds rough, surprised,  _ eager _ , and Archie wants to hear that sound every day for the rest of his  _ life.  _

 

He tugs on the other boy's hips, a quick jerk, to connect them to his. Insides to his outsides, the bones searing together with a fit that makes Archie groan, an echo of that same noise.

 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Jughead pants, head a foggy mess of  _ yes _ ,  _ please _ ,  _ more _ . His hands are splayed across Archie’s chest to hold him up, but the action is pushing Archie down,  _ drown me, drown with me _ ,  _ please _ , and neither minds in the slightest.

 

Another gust of wind kicks up, this time strong and cold and ripples across them both. 

 

Archie can see stars spreading out behind Jughead and it makes him dizzy, as if they're in space, their own planet, their own galaxy. 

 

Just them and the stars. 

 

But it's cold enough to make Jughead blink, being pulled back to Earth. “Come on,” he murmurs, sitting up, helping Archie up and to his knees, pulling him inside the tent.

 

Archie mourns the loss of the stars, of the other boy’s body heat until they're back in the tent, shielded by the wind. Then Jughead is pulling him close, closer, long arms winding around him, kisses different than they were a moment ago. Now they're bolder with permission given, harder knowing the other boy won't break under his hands. 

 

Archie reaches up, gently takes the beanie from Jughead's head, placing it with care to the side as Jughead's kissing his jaw, his neck, nosing against the junction between neck and shoulder, nipping at it. Makes Archie see stars, makes him forget about mourning their loss, makes him feel as if he's inhaled water, the dizzy drowning feeling is back, makes him gasp against Jughead's neck. 

 

“Please.” Neither of the boys know who says it (maybe it's both of them), a prayer for each other. 

 

_ I need this.  _

 

Shirts come off, their fingers dance and brush against each other as they do. Jughead pushes Archie down, running a lax mouth softly down his neck, his collarbones, the indent of his sternum. A sharp intake of breath somewhere near his navel as Archie's fingers weave themselves into his hair, tugging gently. Jughead's fingers are holding Archie's hips, a firm grip to prevent him from flying apart.

 

“Jug,  _ please -”  _

 

The fire’s in Jughead's veins now, making him flushed, mouth swollen, surging up to kiss the other boy, hips rolling into him in one long unbroken wave. 

 

Archie uses the flash of pure  _ everything _ that the movement lights in him to flip their positions, presses into Jughead beneath him now with a keening noise as he runs the edge of his teeth along his collarbones, tracing almost from one end to the other, wings across his chest. Jughead’s head rolls back, arching the long line of his throat, and Archie imagines he can see the noises he's pulling from him start from the base and travel up that beautiful column. Smooth like polished marble, but warm like a sunbeam.

 

Those noises would be scrolling like notes from a music sheet. 

 

Archie pulls himself up to cover that expanse with his lips, wanting to taste all those opposites, all of that heat and skin and  _ Jughead _ , and slides a leg between Jughead’s to press his thigh against him.

 

The other boy roils beneath him, a flickering flame, a demanding sea. “ _ Fuck,  _ Arch,  _ a-ahh _ ,” Archie hums against his skin, tongue flicking out to soothe the area under his jaw before he nips at it again. Jughead’s hips cant up, slide along his leg, and Archie can feel his muscles twitch and quiver, wonder how long until they give out and press them both together.

 

Archie finds himself grinning against the other boy's neck, raking his teeth down it, just enough to make him whimper, pull him down, pull him closer. He presses again, one greedy clench, and the gasp Jughead gives sounds just like his name.

 

“ _ Jesus _ , Arch, please-” and Jughead's hands are fluttering over his belt, fingers boneless and scrambling and shaking, trying to remove everything to let him feel his skin.

 

_ More. I want more of him. I  _ need  _ more of him.  _

 

Archie takes the hint, both managing to undo the other's belt, pulling and kicking out of their jeans. Jughead's hands are still at his hips, tugging at Archie's boxers, fingers trying to inch underneath. Two pairs of hands fluttering, brushing against each other, meet, part while boxers are stripped, kicked out of.

 

And then there's just skin. Feels like miles and meters of it, and Jughead has goosebumps, hair on his arm standing up. 

 

There's a moment of breathing, outside of time, where each boy just looks at each other. Gazes rove over faces, skitter down necks and chests, lower, lower. Mouths open, breath panting, a pause.

 

“Jug,” Archie breathes, just to say his name again, float it in the air between them.

 

It feels  _ sacred _ , somehow. Like it would be a blasphemy to say his name any other way.

 

Jughead swallows, watches Archie track the movement down his throat, revels in the shadows his eyelashes cast over his cheeks, flushed and spotted with beautiful freckles. Then Archie’s leaning in, slow again, gliding his lips over his, tongues and teeth and gasping moans.

 

They've never felt their hearts go so fast before, rabbits that had been stuck in dark warrens, now trying to escape out into the sun.

 

The first fit of their hips together is shaky, a test, a touch. Their flesh, so heavy and hot and aching, slides against the other to elicit rough swears, heady groans.

 

_ Not enough. _

 

They're burning and drowning and now, turning to steam. Intertwining, hands knitting together. Sighs and gasps that sound like volcanoes, seas of fire, lava flows. Jughead's kisses get harder, nipping at Archie's lower lip, pulling at it with a soft growl. Archie pulls back enough to lower his head beside Jughead’s, breath puffing out in bursts against his neck. It's too much and not enough and the beat kicking out from his heart like a drum keeps singing for more, more,  _ more _ .

 

“Juggie, I need…” he licks at his lips, tries to pick words from the cotton haze of his mind.

 

“Me too.” Jughead's voice is a little broken, a little rough, a little airy. He uncurls one hand from Archie’s and flings it out beside him, groping blindly for something. Archie pushes himself up, causing a chain reaction of their hips to slide together again, and Jughead’s mission falters with a poorly concealed whimper. When he meets Archie’s eyes, the other boy can see himself reflected in the dark pools.

 

“What is it?” Archie asks softly, after the fire licks back into his spine to sit at his tailbone. Never full, ever hungry.

 

“Vaseline.” Jughead huffs a laugh, a quick burst of surprise and good fortune. “I packed some with the matches in case we needed a fire starter.” There's a grin on his face, the flush on his cheeks glowing above his teeth, and Archie ducks in again to sear their lips together.

 

“Clever,” he murmurs against the corner of his mouth, and drags biting little kisses down the slick line of his throat as Jughead makes keening noises and tries to unzip his bag.

 

“Archie,  _ fuck _ ,” Jughead twists his neck to see better, giving more space over to the famished boy above him, and curls his fingertips into the fabric of his pack. “This will go a  _ lot faster  _ if you would help me.” Archie’s response is a languid hum against his skin, a vibration to swim through his system and liquefy his bones, and a sharp graze along his jaw bone. He shudders hard. “ _ Jesus _ . Arch, focus, please,” It comes out begging and pleading, hips snapping up of their own accord to press together, knees falling open like a book.

 

Archie’s laugh is a dark thing, secret, borne of the starry night, and he puts his weight on one arm to rifle through the pocket with him, closing around a small tub and pulling it out. 

 

Archie's sitting up, and it makes Jughead whimper, try to reach for him to bring him back down. Archie takes one of those hands, lays a kiss on the palm, and opens the lid on the tub. It's when he dips two fingers in to scoop some out that he pauses again. It's cold and smooth and tacky on his fingertips, the sensation strange against his sweat-damp skin, still so warm. He ghosts eyes over Jughead’s, question peering out, but the other boy grabs his wrist and lowers it between them, keeps his gaze as he presses on Archie's fingers against that tight ring.

 

It makes Jughead take a deep breath in, and with his other hand, pulling the redhead into a kiss as he continues to press in. When one finger slips in, his gasp is loud, the kiss turns sloppy. Archie pulls away, too greedy, wants to see the effect across Jughead’s open face. He curls his finger against him, inside him, and the result is Jughead arching almost completely off the ground with a whine, bent like a bow. He's scrabbling against the bottom of the tent with one hand, pressing crescents into Archie’s arm with the other.

 

“ _ Fuck _ .” His hips, muscles already ache a bit from that sudden spasm of need. He’s biting a kiss-swollen lower lip, a light sheen of sweat starting to gather at his hairline, pool in the small dip between collarbones. Archie swallows, hears his thundering heart in his ear drums like a solid thing, tries to keep from moaning just at the sight.

 

“Keep going, Arch,  _ please _ .” His voice is soft, almost a beg, almost a plea. 

 

Archie nods, giving his finger another experimental curl, watches Jughead's hips cant upward once more. Goes deeper, feeling the other boy tighten around him. “ _ Aah _ ,” Jughead whines, and Archie briefly watches the fluttering of muscles in his thigh. “ _ More _ .” And  _ oh _ , that's a beautiful sound. Hearing the other boy's breath hitch and hesitate and it's sweet, it's perfect. The fire spreads out from the base of Archie’s spine again, rolling through him and burning him up like paper. He smoothes his other hand up Jughead’s leg, over his hip and stomach to hold at his side. To ground him, maybe, or to keep reminding Archie that he exists.

 

He presses the second finger next to the first, testing as gently as he can, not wanting to hurt him. A sigh leaks from between Jughead's lips, something mixed with a whine. The lost boy beneath him seems ethereal, glowing with sweat and arousal and anticipation. Archie's reminded fleetingly of the elves from the Peter Jackson adaptation of  _ Lord of the Rings _ , and if Jughead's ears were pointed, he'd fit in just fine at Rivendell. 

 

He pushes in again and curls both fingers, spread apart a bit and pressing, to hear the hissed whimper from between Jughead’s teeth. The boy is  _ shaking _ , pushing back against his fingers with a high, wild keen that Archie can almost feel in the back of his throat.

 

“It's enough,  _ please _ , Arch.” Even Jughead's  _ voice _ is shaking. Archie holds still a moment, mouth slack with something like awe as he takes in the sight. His fingers stretch out once more and twitch with a full body shudder, pressing against a spot inside Jughead’s body.

 

This time Jughead lets out a loud moan that seems to startle him. His toes are  _ curling _ , tightly against his feet, bright swathes of light behind his eyelids and tingling sparklers along his nerve endings.

 

_ Moremoremoremoremore _

 

“Arch I swear to fuck if you don't get in me soon this party's gonna be over pretty quickly.” It's breathy and hoarse, panted out into their space. 

 

Archie can't help but ask. “How soon?”

 

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Like super really soon, dude, you're  _ murdering _ me here.”

 

“They don't call it  _ the little death _ for nothing, right?”

 

Jughead swats at him and they're both laughing. The sudden movement makes Archie go deeper accidentally, and Jughead chokes out a groan, a curse. Archie surges forward suddenly to feel the noise on his tongue, and finds Jughead’s kisses wild and hard, hand releasing his arm to drag blunt nails across the redhead’s scalp, teeth nipping at his lips sharply. Archie stutters a moan, sliding his fingers out with a sharp breath from the boy below him. 

 

There's a movement from Jughead that Archie can't track, so lost is he in the way Jughead curls his tongue around his. It's when he feels fingers, slick and cool, wrap around his cock that his mouth falls slack, a noise pulled out of him that he can't name.

 

He can feel Jughead grinning against his neck between nips and kisses. 

 

“Eye for an eye,” the other boy hums, tugs at his earlobe once with dull teeth.

 

“Jug,  _ fuck - “ _

 

“That's the idea, yeah.” Jughead looks pleased with himself, ever more so by the minute as he pulls all kinds of sounds from Archie. The wildness in his eyes seems to be contagious, and Archie wonders if his look just as bright and manic.

 

After pulling him in for a desperate kiss, he decides that they probably do. 

 

Fingers dance against him, up and down, and it's driving him  _ mad. _ His hips jerk forward, trying to catch every motion, every movement, while Jughead offsets the hand on his length with teeth at his neck, running along the muscles pulled tight, tongue flicking out to taste at his pulse. Archie’s whole body is begging, and it's only belatedly that he realizes he is too, noises and sounds and pleas falling from his mouth like prayers.

 

“ _ Please, _ ” Archie whines, and the hand is gone as suddenly as it appeared.

 

“Ever-giving.” Jughead reminds him, voice close to a purr. 

 

And then he's on his back faster than he can blink and he’d laugh but Archie's kissing him like it would save his life, hard and desperate and he's  _ shaking _ . 

 

He pulls away to breathe. “Please, Jug. Can we…” It's murmured up against Jughead's lips. Jughead finds himself nodding almost frantically,  _ yes, yes we can _ , reaching for him. 

 

Archie's careful, almost too careful, when he lines himself up, eases himself in. He's raining down kisses on Jughead's face, trying to make sure it won't hurt. 

 

(But it does and it's a good pain.) 

 

They have to pause for a beat, everything is too much and Archie can't be sure he's going to make it, vibrations along his tailbone at sonic speed. He drops his forehead to Jughead’s and eases out a shaky breath, trying to reorient his universe.

 

“You good?” Jughead's voice is soft, hands on his cheeks. He forces himself to relax, trying to help the boy on his knees remember which way is  _ up.  _

 

After a few long moments, Archie nods, kissing him as he begins to move. 

 

Too much sensation, not enough. Jughead's walking a tightrope of opposites and has the feeling this may not last very long. He can't breathe, and all he can do is pant, gasp, wind his arms and legs around the boy moving above him. He drops little blasphemies from his lips, drawn-out whines of his name that send electric shudders down Archie’s spine like waves.

 

“ _ Jug _ ,” Archie’s moaning, each slide of his hips connecting them, bringing them further up, up, up. “It-” a swallow, a keen lodged behind his Adam’s apple as Jughead rolls his hips and presses back against him. “ _ Fuck _ , fuck, you feel so  _ good _ .”

 

The next breath out of Jughead’s mouth could be a laugh, could be a curse. He's not even sure anymore, his world shrunk down to bright bursts of colour painted on his eyelids, power lines across a field connected to his nerve endings, a campfire behind his bellybutton. “F- _ uck _ ,” he gasps, pulls Archie to him with scratching nails across his chest to press their pounding hearts together, snapping his hips up on every downstroke.

 

The colors don't even have names, they don't exist outside of this field, this  _ place _ they've created between them.

 

This starfield.

 

Jughead arches from his mid-back, rolling all of himself, trying to get more,  _ more _ , and god he wants it to end, never to end, be trapped here forever. 

 

_ Drown me. Drown with me. _

 

Their foreheads meet, their hands are tangled together so tight their knuckles are all bone. 

 

_ Burn me. Immolate me. Burn with me.  _

 

Archie tastes the sea on Jughead's lips, against the pulse in his neck as he tries to taste the words printed on his skin.

 

“Please,” and fuck, Jughead doesn't even know what he's asking for anymore, feeling the other boy hit that one spot and he wants to laugh cry scream - “ _ Christ _ ,  _ Arch- _ ” He thinks it might come out like a sob,  _ close, so close _ . Archie’s hand sweeps over his stomach in jerky movements, slick and damp, closing around the base of his cock and lighting the fuse.

 

Archie's hand glides up, keeps moving, never stopping, Jughead's caught like a pendulum between his hips and hands. Feels the world starting to shrink and he's tightening around the other boy. Fire licks at his spine and it's absolutely vicious, voracious,  _ wonderful _ .

 

_ This is how stars are created, right?  _ It's an absurd thought that arrives as everything  _ stops  _ around him, goes white. “Jesus  _ fuck,  _ Archie - “

 

It feels like pure electricity's being  _ pulled _ from his abdomen and he shouts, clutching hard at the other boy, knuckles white. Spills into Archie's hand, ropes of white. 

 

He feels like he's unraveling and being sewn back together as Archie rocks into him, gathering the burst pieces of his heart and reassembling them into his own.

 

Stars and flames and churning seas behind his eyes. Pure, delicious pleasure.

 

“Jug - “ Archie chokes, feeling whatever fire right below his tailbone explode, shooting up to his neck, his hands, his belly and hips. He's dizzy and everything is spinning but he can't care. Feeling the boy sprawled out beneath him go absolutely still, neck long, head back as if in prayer. He has the fleeting thought that this image is so much better, so much more beautiful than what he pictured in the car earlier before the world vanishes, he's floating in space as he comes, feels it being ripped out of him. He gives in so easily, immediately, feels the bright starlight of perfect euphoria shine through his body, his system sighing out  _ yes yes yes _ . He can feel Jughead through it all, a tether to bring him back to earth, back to him.

 

_ Stay with me. _

 

He never wants to leave.

 

And then it's over, and he's half-sprawled on top of Jughead, both fighting to catch their breath. There's hair falling in damp strands over his face, and he feels Jughead smooth it back, card that hand through his hair, sticking it up every which way. 

 

They lie there, just like that, for several moments. Archie smoothes his thumb over the back of Jughead’s hand, hears the soft, contented sigh from the boy beneath him, imagines it puffed into a cloud to join the sky, their moment of bliss.

 

“Am I smothering you?” He asks, only slightly sheepish, and adjusts his head to the side to press a lazy kiss to the soft skin just below Jughead's ear.

 

There's a huff of laughter from the other boy, and Archie can feel it through his chest where they're pressed together. “Would you move even if you were?”

 

A grin pressed to that skin, Jughead’s neck arching slightly to encourage the action. “Hmm. It would probably need to be a  _ real _ emergency.”

 

“I'm flattered I rank so high.” Jughead snickers, and Archie pulls back, hoists himself up on muscles still shaky from pleasure to flit his eyes over the other's face. 

 

“Top of the list.” He murmurs, and watches the smile curl up Jughead's mouth, swollen and flushed pink, watches the soft light leak out of his eyes, unable to be contained, hears the steady beat of their hearts in tune.

 

_ Home home home home _

 

They pull apart gingerly, delicately, pausing only for soft kisses and raptured grins as they move light fingers over the marks made on their skin. Archie pays particular attention to the score of pink and lilac splotches on Jughead's neck with an echo of delight that pulls behind his navel.

 

(“Sorry.” 

 

“Liars never win, Arch. Plus, I like them.” 

 

“Perv.”)

 

It's as Archie's pulling his boxers back on that he freezes suddenly, reality pouring back into him all at once.

 

“Arch? What-”

 

“Shit, the  _ campfire _ !” He yelps and jumps up, tearing out of the tent to put out the forgotten flames as Jughead’s laughter echoes from inside the flaps.

  
  
  
  


They wake up to the sound of waves.

 

They're curled into each other, Archie curled around Jughead. For a summer morning, it's frigid, and Jughead's sore. He winces as he rolls over. 

 

“Too early,” he mumbles, half-awake, head against Archie's chest. Archie's arms are tight around him, lips against the crown of his head. 

 

Archie finds that the sound of the waves brings back the wish to come back here when they finally leave Riverdale. Jughead's the calmest he's ever been, and Archie feels just as mellow. 

 

Or maybe it was the sex. Or both? He's not sure which.

 

They fall back asleep, and Jughead wakes up later to the scritching of pen on paper, soft humming. 

 

“Hey.” Jughead's voice is soft and rough, and he eases himself up, still feeling sore. 

 

“Hey,” Archie beams back at him, a huge grin on his face, and goes back to writing.

 

“What time is it?”

 

“Noon. I think. You want coffee?” Archie kisses him and Jughead makes a soft noise. 

 

“How is that even a question?” it's through a yawn as Jughead rubs his eyes, Archie ducking out to grab the thermos he made an hour earlier. 

 

“Ah, I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” Jughead sighs after his first cup. “It's burnt but it's never tasted better.” He pauses. “Or maybe that's the dopamine talking.” 

 

“Probably the dopamine,” Archie agrees.

 

There's a pause, awkward and pregnant, both of them looking at their hands until they look up and smile the same dizzy, drunk grin at each other. 

 

Jughead offers out the hand that isn't holding the thermos out to Archie, and Archie takes it in his grip tightly. They sit there for a few moments, just holding hands while Jughead finishes his coffee. 

 

Peace. The voice in his head that's usually screaming about how he'll always be alone (Jughead), the one that shrieks that he doesn't and never will deserve this (Archie) is gloriously silent, and both boys feel slightly off-kilter without the constant soundtrack of self-loathing turned up to eleven. 

 

“Are we heading back after this?” Archie asks, voice quiet, as if whispering the words would make them less true. Jughead stares down into the empty cup, trying to corral his thoughts away from their natural pessimism.

 

“We probably have to.” He murmurs. Archie ducks his head to catch his gaze, and Jughead lets the other boy see.

 

“Just for a while. I still think we could move back out here, find a college in the area.”

 

“So another year?”

 

“One more.” 

 

Jughead watches the other boy’s face, sees the plan taking shape behind his eyes.

 

_ We can make it. _

 

He runs his thumb over Archie’s knuckles, finds that the thought doesn't fill him with panic and dread.

 

They're both not sure what to do with all of this inner silence. 

 

It was going take a lot of work to get them back out here, but that was okay. If they started planning now, started doing their research into what they’ll need in order to move…

 

Things seemed  _ possible _ , suddenly. 

 

Jughead finds himself grinning at that realization, finds himself pulling Archie down, kissing him.

 

“Then we start planning when we get back.” 

 

Archie grins against his lips in response.

  
“Okay. Together.”


	4. Interlude: Soundtrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude: hear what the authors listened to while writing these sad boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usagi here.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, guys. To tide y'all over until we're done with the epilogue, listen to what we listened to while writing. All of this should be available through regular streaming platforms (or at least, they are here in North America). Check these tunes out when you can.

Usagi:

General theme: Radiohead - _Exit Music for a Film_

FOREST:

  1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - _Gold Lion_
  2.  Waterparks - _Bones of ‘92_
  3.  David Bowie - _Lazarus_
  4.  Iggy Pop - _American Valhalla_
  5.  Metric - _Blindness_



DESERT:

  1. Chase Atlantic - Triggered
  2. Florence + the Machine - _Breath of Life_
  3. Sleep On It - _Counting Miles_
  4. Radiohead - _Burn the Witch_
  5. Trent Reznor + Atticus Ross - _Parallel Timeline with Alternate Outcome_



SEA:

  1. Utada - _Animato_
  2. Bring Me the Horizon - _Follow You_
  3. Placebo - _Jesus’ Son_
  4. Rilo Kiley - _Let Me Back In_
  5. Hole - _Malibu_



 

Lyxxie:

 

FOREST

  1. Halsey - _Drive_
  2. Tracy Chapman - _Give Me One Reason_
  3. Unions - _Bury_
  4. Halsey - _Gasoline_



 

DESERT:

  1. Dean Lewis - _Waves_
  2. Dorothy - _Medicine Man_
  3. Three Days Grace - _Never Too Late_ (or _Get Out Alive_ )
  4. Imogen Heap -  _Canvas_



 

SEA:

  1. Leonard Cohen - _Hallelujah_
  2. Sia - _Bird Set Free_
  3. Julia Michaels - _Issues_




	5. Epilogue: River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, they came back with six rolls of film that had to be developed. At first, Jughead argued for heterochrome and color and black and white, but after seeing the cost and time associated, decided to go half color, half black and white.
> 
> Now Betty and Veronica are there next to him, looking through the pictures, sorting them into piles of which photos were going where, a stack of three old school photo albums bunched between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usagi here, y'all. 
> 
> Here we are. The end. For me, this is very bittersweet, and I'm sad it's over. Thanks for rolling with the punches, guys. I hope that you had as much fun as we did. I would love to maybe check back in on our guys in the future, as a follow-up. 
> 
> Also, Lyxxie says: "Thanks for sticking it out with us through the rough shit and the good sex. In this epilogue are some of my favourite dialogue lines because the back and forth makes me laugh. Also if you squint you can see my neck kink, not sorry. Bisoux."
> 
> Thanks again for making it with us to this point. We love you.

The relentless march of time forward, ever forward, brings hints of fall in the late August air.

 

It's hot and wet but there's that breath there from nature, that suggestion of shivering leaves and bonfires and homecoming being whispered in the thick morning mist that now envelopes Riverdale each dawn. The everlasting, continuing way that the earth continues on as it was meant to.

 

Jughead hates the humidity, but doesn't mind the heat. As he brings the glue stick down in a smooth glide on the back of the photo in his hands, he realizes that that was the best part of the desert, aside from the meteor shower. He loved the dire dryness of it, the blessed dreaminess that came with temperatures in excess of 117F. He loved sitting in those Martian landscapes, drinking something sweating and cold and writing until the dreamy desert fog hit his brain too hard to continue. There was something about the greediness of it that he appreciated, the way it burned and sapped life and cracked the earth, but that things continued to thrive in its presence -  _ needed _ its existence in order to survive.

 

In the end, they came back with six rolls of film that had to be developed. At first, Jughead argued for heterochrome and color and black and white, but after seeing the cost and time associated, decided to go half color, half black and white. 

 

Now Betty and Veronica are there next to him, looking through the pictures, sorting them into piles of which photos were going where, a stack of three old school photo albums bunched between them. 

 

The one specifically for Archie is in Jughead's lap. He's collecting different memories for this one, not categorized by location. Where the other albums are timelines of the three distinct geozones they visited, this one is a collection of the whole trip. 

 

There's snaps of Archie driving, lips parted mid sing-along from the radio, one of Jughead tucked into the passenger seat with his beanie pulled over his eyes and notebook on his knees. There's several of them making faces at the camera, Archie sticking his tongue out and Jughead pulling down one lower-eyelid and flipping him off. There's photos of them laughing, so much laughter, surrounded by sun and trees and dunes and sand and sea.

 

It's a collection of their happiness, their resurrection. A Lazarus effect carried out over their trip.

 

It's a symbol of love.

 

Betty slides a picture over to him with a smile and Jughead takes it, looking over the photo. It's a shot from their night in the forest that he doesn't remember Archie taking of him, Jughead looking into the fire with a soft smile with the light dancing over his features.

 

“Thanks, Bets. It's perfect.”

 

Betty loves the way that Jughead's face softens, and his eyes lighten just looking at the picture, lost in memory. She shares a look with Veronica, both girls smiling at the idea that their friends have found such peace.

 

“Ooooh, how about this one?” Veronica practically squeals, handing Jughead one of his favorite pictures he took from the desert. It's in black and white, and Archie's standing in front of the camera, mid-sentence. The wind is blowing, and he's down to his undershirt because of the heat. He's all light and shadow, squinting at Jughead. Chiaroscuro.

 

Betty’s mouth hangs open. “Wow.” It's really good, almost professional. “Juggie, are you sure you don't want to try photography for the Blue and Gold this year?”

 

“It's not that good,” but he's flushing, looking down at his book, trying to find a good placement for it. “But I was kinda thinking about it.” 

 

“You should. These are really good! And I've seen a lot of this sorta thing,” Veronica's preening quietly but also winking at the beanie-ridden boy. 

 

He rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Ronnie.” He takes the photo, and pastes it in the book. Holds it out, pleased with his work. “I'm not sure I'll have time, though.” 

 

The two girls look at each other. “Why not?” Betty asks, stretching her legs. 

 

“Because we're on a mission,” his voice is soft, fond, digging in his bag for his “moving to California” checklist. Aside from Archie, he hasn't shown this to anyone else. “We both want to move out to LA after graduation.”

 

Veronica takes the notebook from him, a grin stretching her lips after she scans it. “Oh my god, Jughead Jones, you and Archie are officially a cliche.”

 

Jughead sighs heavily. “I'm aware. Don't remind me.” He both hates and loves that they're a cliche, but he'd never say that out loud. “We just fell in love with it while we were there. It's oddly peaceful for being such a hub of human activity.”

 

“You gonna learn to surf, too? You know, complete that cliche trifecta?” Veronica laughs, but it's gentle, affectionate.

 

Jughead actually gives her rib thought. The idea of being out on the water for hours, riding under waves and seeing rainbows in the sunlight. “I know  _ he _ wants to. I'm still thinking about it.” 

 

Betty's busy looking over the detailed list. “You're right. You may not have time if you're going to try to apply to all of these schools and programs.” 

 

“I was thinking of writing a screenplay,” Jughead muses, leaning back on his hands. “I'm not sure about some of the writing programs aside of Occidental’s but at least USC has the best one - “

 

“Yeah but James Franco doesn't teach there,” Veronica interjects, now looking through the pile of pictures that haven't been decided upon yet. “He only teaches at UCLA’s program.”

 

“I'm honestly a bit impressed, Ronnie. How do you know?” Jughead's eyebrows are raised, curious gaze watching the dark-haired girl sift through photos.

 

“He never shuts up about it on Facebook.” 

 

“Yeah well, that aside, I need to find a good program for film in terms of screenwriting. The rest should fall into place.” He hopes. He and Archie have spent many a late night talking in low voices about the future, how to structure things.

 

Betty takes up another undecided pile, the idea of them moving making her stomach churn, making her limbs heavier. A frown pulls at her features. “And Archie?” 

 

“He's trying to find a flexible program that will allow him to do what he wants even if on a scholarship for football or something. I've suggested he might minor in whatever he wants to but can't study as a major.” Jughead shrugs, “It's a lot to think about, and plan. All of these schools have different thresholds for what's acceptable for GPAs and testing scores for applying.” 

 

Veronica sees Betty's expression and gently elbows her. “We can always come visit them, Bets. Head out to the coast, catch some rays.” 

 

She nods, still looking minorly queasy at the thought of all of them separating. Going off in their different ways. 

 

“And in the meantime, I'll see if I know anyone that might be able to help with the film school thing,” Veronica looks as if she's starting to plan something. There's a calculated look in her eye, and Jughead can almost see a rolodex through her corneas.

 

“It's okay, Ronnie, you don't have to - “

 

“Oh, but I  _ want _ to, Juggie. Besides…” A light blush falls on her cheeks and she busies herself with flipping through the pictures faster. “You guys have been good to me. If I can help, let me.”

 

Jughead finally smiles, seeing her expression. “If you really want to, you can. But you don't have to. I'm not expecting anything.”

 

“Just promise you'll think of me when it's time to cast for your big movie.” She winks at him, and Jughead snorts a laugh.

 

Silence for a moment before Betty starts giggling. “What about this one, Juggie?”

 

Archie's shirtless, and bright pink scratches stretch over his chest. The picture’s in color, and his cheeks are pink. Because of what, it's not clear (exertion or a blush or a sunburn). 

 

“Uh…” Jughead suddenly can't speak, lost in memory. 

 

_ Their third day at the beach has made them drunk on sun and saltwater, has made them bolder and braver than before.  _

 

_ They're already plenty drunk on each other, which isn't helping.  _

 

_ They're drying off from several hours of wakeboarding (having found a rental place somewhere in town), tumbling in the surf like children. Howling like the beasts they are, their bodies heavy with lactic acid from constant movement.  _

 

_ Jughead can see salt lining Archie's eyelashes, see it scattered on sun kissed shoulders, taste it on his lips when he kisses him.  _

 

_ They don't speak, too engrossed in lips and tongues, Archie dragging Jughead into their tent. There's laughter and the sound of the sea, turning to whimpers and pleading, to soft gasps and keens as Jughead grins against Archie's skin, drawing his nails down his chest hard, pink ribbon paths appearing. Archie's hands cradling his hips as they move. It's slow, timed to the tides (though neither of them know it), Jughead’s thighs framing Archie's waist and ribs. _

 

Jughead reaches out to take the photo from Betty, feeling heat seep along his cheeks and over his ears. He tries to focus on gluing the back, but the girls are snickering in front of him with glee.

 

Veronica hoots suddenly, throwing her head back with laughter and fanning herself with a photograph.

 

_ Shit. _

 

“ _ Jughead Jones _ !” She cheers, and Jughead snaps his hand out to try and grab the picture from her, running through what it could possibly be to make her so excited.

 

“What is it? Show me!” Betty tugs on Veronica’s arm, and they lean out of Jughead's reach while Veronica flashes her the image. He watches Betty’s eyes widen, eyebrows ascending into her hairline, and tries not to imagine jumping out the window.

 

“Ronnie, just show me the damn picture,” he grumbles. She puts a hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her giggles and flips the photo.

 

It's of him, sitting outside their tent on the beach that first morning. He's squinting at Archie behind the camera in the bright sun, one eye mostly closed from the intrusion of light, hands carefully wrapped around his coffee. 

 

But that's not the important part.

 

His neck is a  _ mess _ with dark purple (almost black) and red splotches, bleeding like ink across his skin, tokens of Archie’s ravenous affection from the night before. The camera’s picked up all the different colours, his love bites on full display, and Jughead remembers Archie laughing as he took the picture.

 

“Fuck.” Jughead mutters, feels the heat flush across his whole face now, beet red and burning. He reaches out and plucks the snapshot from Veronica’s hand, and she uses its freedom to wipe delicately under one eye, grin stretching her face. 

 

“Well isn't that just adorable?” She teases, and Betty ducks her head down to hide her smile. Jughead tries to shoot her a look, full of disdain and his normal amount of human boredom, but the colour on his face nullifies any and all comeback. “Who knew you could be so  _ precious _ , blushing over your boyfriend.” He flips her off but she laughs again.

 

Betty reaches out to touch his knee, and he looks over to find a beaming smile on her face, happiness at their joy. He tries to give her one in return but it might be more of a grimace, and he raises a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose.

 

“So tell us, is Archie any good?” Veronica flashes her eyes at him.

 

“What the  _ fuck _ , Ronnie, I am  _ not  _ answering that.” It's an indignant sputter from Jughead, who goes even redder at her words.

 

A shrug from Veronica, and she settles back against the wall behind her. “That's ok. You already settled a bet we had going on whether or not Andrews had an oral fixation.”

 

“Oh my god.” Jughead can feel the blush in his  _ teeth _ now, deep in the back, in his molars, and wonders if he can will himself into the photos around him, back into their vacation.

 

Betty snorts a laugh behind her hand and reaches out the other to swat at her girlfriend. “V, look at the poor boy, leave him alone.”

 

“Goddamnit, why did I ask you two to help me?”

 

Betty’s smile matches her laugh, bright and cheerful. “Because you love us, Juggie.”

 

Veronica points a finger at him. “Don't get mad at  _ me _ , I was trying to  _ help _ you and Archie! I tried to sneak a bottle of lube into your backpack before you left, but Betty here wouldn't let me. She was  _ convinced _ it would take you two longer to sort your shit out and just fuck already.” At Jughead’s mouth falling open, Veronica swings her gaze to the blonde. “Which you were wrong about, clearly, so you owe me five bucks.”

 

Jughead gently puts down his glue stick, the stack of pictures, the album by his feet. Puts his head against his knees, hiding his face. “Why is everyone talking about my sex life?” He moans and it's muffled by his jeans. 

 

Veronica's examining her nails. “Because it’s a small town and there's literally nothing else to do.” She curls her other arm around Jughead, patting his shoulder. 

 

Betty quietly hands her a crisp five dollar bill, which Veronica tucks into her bra. 

 

He glares at both of them, uncurling himself to start working again.

 

It's a few minutes before he speaks once more, voice quiet and resigned. “It's possible,” he starts, clears his throat. “that the lube would have been appreciated.” He flicks a glance up to Veronica to find her grinning wide and proud. She pats his shoulder again and winks at Betty.

 

“Told you.” Betty rolls her eyes and continues to flip through her stack of photos. “Do you need any now that you're home? We could give you our spare bottle-” 

 

“ _ Jesus christ _ , no, please stop talking.”

 

“I mean, we've got the advantage of self-lubrication, so…” 

 

“I am  _ literally begging you _ to shut the fuck up.”

 

“Did you beg Archie, too?” Veronica’s eyes are glowing, cat’s eyes in the dark, and Jughead groans from deep in his soul, presses into his eye sockets with one hand.

 

“God _ fucking _ dammit _. _ ”

 

“That means you  _ did!”  _ Veronica's laughing in delight, crowing in victory. “And I bet Archie  _ loved _ it.” 

 

Jughead blushes a dark red (though it also might be anger, too, but no one's sure) and clenches his teeth against any rebuttals, not wanting to throw further fuel on this particular fire.

 

She’s not  _ wrong _ , but Jughead’s not about to tell her that. 

 

“Begging leads to other things, Juggie,” Betty's giggling and  _ oh no, not her too _ . 

 

“Real quick, can you just tell me if there's  _ anything _ I can do to get out of this conversation?”

 

“Nope.” Veronica chirps.

 

“Probably not.” Betty’s hum is falsely contemplative. “Remember, if you guys decide to explore stuff that's not vanilla, do your research so no one gets hurt.”

 

“You telling me this from experience, Bets?” Jughead raises an eyebrow, jumps onto the life raft of no longer discussing  _ his _ sex life with both feet first.

 

She blushes deeply. “Maybe.”

 

Veronica laughs softly. “She's right. Don't make Mom and Dad's mistake here, Juggie.”

 

“Oh, god.” He rolls his eyes but then can't help his curiosity. It's possible this might not be the best alternative topic, but any port in a storm. “So wait. Who's mom?”

 

“Are you asking us who wears the pants, Jug?” Betty can't stop laughing but now she's blushing nearly as deeply as Jughead is.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Why didn't we teach our kids any manners, Dad?” Veronica kisses Betty on the cheek, who squeaks. “Plus, I think he was asking us who wears the strap-”

 

“ _ Please, _ ” Jughead shouts, throws his hands over his ears. “ _ Please _ for the love of  _ fucking anything _ , please drop this.”

 

Veronica's laughter is uproarious, all-consuming. “You're so cute, with your antiquated notions of gender roles.” 

 

“And gender binary, too - “ Betty's gasping with giggles.

 

“- which we all know is bullshit.” Veronica rolls her eyes but is still laughing. 

 

“That's not even...I wasn't…” Jughead swings a glance between the two, tag teaming him with prods and teases, wonders how his life ended up here.

 

Veronica leans in and kisses his cheek this time. “We know.”

 

Jughead scrubs a hand over his face, tries to pull the embarrassment out with the drag of his fingers, and attempts desperately to return to gluing photos.

 

“I just wanted to make Archie a fucking  _ photo album _ , is that so much to ask?”

 

“You're so cute when you're exasperated, though.” Betty kisses his cheek too, and Jughead shakes his head.

 

“I can't wait to move,” He grumbles, but has a small smile curling his lips. Veronica tuts at him and they go back to work, much to Jughead's immense relief.

 

The time goes by quickly, no more embarrassing photos left to find, and soon they're closing the covers on the albums and stretching.

 

“These look really good, Juggie,” Betty says again, rubbing at the back of her sore neck with one hand. Veronica hums in agreement, arching her back to try and pop something in her spine.

 

“Thanks for your help.” Jughead murmurs, and the smile he gets from both girls is warm and comforting.

 

Betty takes her phone out of her back pocket, checking the time. “He should be home soon, so we'll go. Leave you to do the rest.”

 

Veronica groans. “But I wanted to see Archie's reaction! We worked so  _ hard _ on these.”

 

“I'm sure Juggie will let him know that we were instrumental in putting this together.” Betty's tone is't a suggestion. He salutes her, holding Archie's book in his hand. 

 

Betty seems pleased. “And on that note, we take our leave.” She pulls Veronica by the hand, but stops to kiss Jughead's cheek.

 

“Good luck.”

 

Jughead smiles, heart feeling full. “Thanks, Bets.”

  
  


Archie comes home ready to die. 

 

Only the second football practice of the season and Coach had to end it early, due to the heat, since Reggie looked like he was about to have heat stroke. (He wasn't the only one, just the most noticeable.)

 

It's hot and wet and he misses the forest (there were seven lakes at Strawberry Wilderness), the desert (at least it was a dry heat), and the sea (cool, with sweet winds filled with spray). He just feels so sticky and uncomfortable, caught not only in his own skin but under layers of clothing and gear.

 

At least, when he gets home, Jughead has the AC on full blast. It's cool and dry and he sighs in relief. He drags himself upstairs after getting some water, where Jughead's curled up with a book. 

 

“You're home early. Too hot?” 

 

Archie shrugs. “Reggie almost passed out, so yeah. I'd say so. I bet Hell feels better than right now.” He leans over, looking at what Jughead's reading. “Murakami again?”

 

“Dude's written a lot of books. Not all of them have been translated yet, but…” He shrugs, holding up his copy of  _ Kafka on the Shore.  _ “This one is my favorite so far.” 

 

“Why?” Archie's changing his shirt, needing something dry. 

 

“Reminds me of us, a bit,” Jughead answers wistfully, marking his place. “The road trip.” 

 

“Huh.” Maybe he had to read that now, too. 

 

“Anyway. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.” 

 

Archie grins. “A surprise?”

 

Jughead lifts a brow. “You won't know unless you do it, will you?”

 

Archie does as he asks. Jughead reaches under the bed for the photo books, placing the geozone books on the bed, and places the one for Archie in hands.

 

Archie's eyes fly open. “What is this, Jug?” His voice is soft, full of wonder as he flips through the pages. Pages and pages of them, some of the favorite shots he remembers taking all neatly laid out, carefully chronicling their trip.

 

“There’s more.” He tugs at Archie's hand, pulling him onto the bed, showing him the other three books. “One from each place we went.” 

 

Archie feels his heart expand. It's painful, but a good feeling. He’s been getting used to it recently. “Jug, you did all of this? For me?”

 

Jughead's blushing. “Kinda. I guess. I wanted to have a physical reminder of those memories.” There was the battered conch shell they found at the beach, some rocks too, all scattered along the window sill. But those weren't photographs. 

 

It wasn't the same. 

 

“Be able to return to them when we need to, you know?”  _ For when we need to escape _ . Jughead doesn't need to say it out loud for Archie to understand what he means. 

 

Archie nods, heart feeling so full that he doesn't know what to say. He kisses Jughead and it's gentle, it puts all the words he can't say in it. 

 

When he pulls away, Jughead's smile practically splits his face. “So you like them?”

 

“I love them.” 

 

“Oh yeah,” Jughead says after a moment, as if remembering. “Betty and Ronnie helped. And I had to tell you or I don't think you’d be able to find my body. They also saw a bunch of the photos, so. Get ready for a series of strange and uncomfortable conversations with them.”

 

Archie laughs. “I'll thank them whenever we see them next.” Places his book on top of the other ones before pulling Jughead with him down onto the bed. They're looking at each other, both on their sides. “How's the checklist going?”

 

“I'm still looking at programs for writing. The information is harder to find than I thought.” 

 

“You'll find it. We have time.”

 

Jughead smiles. “Yeah. We got started early enough, so here's hoping.” 

 

Archie looks at his desk, now piled high with brochures and applications for the schools on their list. A map of Southern California has been marked with their locations, as a way to figure out possible housing. Pins jutting out from the paper, colouring the land with suggestions.

 

He nods. Maybe it's toward that slow building of their future piled high on their desk, maybe it's toward the fellow lost boy lying next to him who holds all of his heart. Maybe it's toward both. Or neither.

 

He takes Jughead's hand. “We'll figure it out.” 

 

“Nowhere to go but up.” Jughead murmurs, roving his eyes over the map, the stacks, the photo albums, Archie. He has a moment to quietly wonder at the quick 180 his life took, from a cannonball sinking in the sea to planning his life with the person he’s loved for years.

 

Planning his  _ life _ .

 

Jughead doesn’t remember the last time he thought farther ahead than a week, two, maybe a month. A defense mechanism, in case he never made it.

 

But he has a  _ life _ now. Memories and plans and love, in friends and a relationship. Things he never let himself dream of, things he convinced himself he didn't want because he couldn't have them. It makes him study Archie’s face in front of him, realize that every aspect of him is  _ familiar _ and  _ real _ . A map, a topography that he could navigate blind.

 

_ Home. _

 

“You keep looking at me like that,” Archie starts, part teasing, part quiet reverence. “ever since we got back.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like you're not sure how we made it. Like you're not sure what happened, really, just that you're glad it did.” He takes Jughead's hand, twines their fingers together, looks at the way they fit. “Exactly how I feel.”

 

Jughead reaches for  _ Kafka on the Shore, _ finding the place he'd marked earlier in the day to read aloud now.“ ‘And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.’ “ He looks at Archie's thoughtful expression as he closes his book. “You were pretty much just quoting Murakami.” 

 

Archie laughs, somewhat incredulously. “Holy shit.” 

 

“Now see why I like reading this guy so much?”  

 

Archie’s grin is quick, unfettered. “Is that why you like  _ me _ so much, too?”

 

Jughead rolls his eyes, placing his book on the stack of albums. “You have your uses, I suppose.” But the other boy won't take no for an answer, swooping in to catch his lips before Jughead has a chance to lean back away, slow and easy, mouths sliding over one another like they haven't a care in the world.

 

He can feel Jughead's grin against his lips. 

 

“Jug?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I love you.” It's quick, whispered against his lips, hasty with the undertone of afraid. The words almost blurred together like the edges of that horizon, ready to pull back like the tides at the first sign of danger. Like the animals in the desert watching for sunset before they come out of their dens. Wary. 

 

Jughead pulls back, tilting his head, a slight frown pulling at his eyebrows. Confusion present on his face, shadowing his eyes. “I love you too. You should know that by now.” He studies Archie's face. “I have for years. Why do you look so terrified, Arch?” There's a mild undercurrent of humour threaded in his words, a baffled sort of bewilderment. 

 

“I...really?” A new kind of hope on Archie’s face, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth, still too shy to break free.

 

Jughead's laughing now, stunned into it by the sheer absurdity of the situation. “Of course. What the  _ fuck _ , did you really not see it?”

 

And Archie laughs with him, pushing at his shoulder with their joined hands. “Shut up, I got there eventually.”

 

Then Jughead stops, looking at him in wonder. “You really didn't see it, did you?” He pauses, pulling the other boy closer. “And here I thought I was throwing myself at you.”

 

“Not obviously enough, I guess.”

 

Another grin, pressed again to those lips like it lives there. “I’ll have to try harder, then.”

 

Archie uncurls their hands only to tuck his arm around Jughead’s middle, bringing their bodies together in a sure fit. When he says the words again, pressing them into the other boy’s mouth on a puff of air, Jughead's laugh is radiant, clean, pure.

 

Loving.

  
_ Home,  _ something in them both sings once more.  _ Home.  _


End file.
